Title: Tarzan at the Earth's Core
Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
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Language: English
Date first posted: Jun 2006
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PELLUCIDAR, as every schoolboy knows, is a world
within a world, lying, as it does, upon the inner surface of the
hollow sphere which is the Earth.

It was discovered by David Innes and Abner Perry
upon the occasion when they made the trial trip upon the mechanical
prospector invented by Perry, wherewith they hoped to locate new
beds of anthracite coal. Owing, however, to their inability to
deflect the nose of the prospector, after it had started downward
into the Earth's crust, they bored straight through for five
hundred miles, and upon the third day, when Perry was already
unconscious owing to the consumption of their stock of oxygen, and
David was fast losing consciousness, the nose of the prospector
broke through the crust of the inner world and the cabin was filled
with fresh air.

In the years that have intervened, weird
adventures have befallen these two explorers. Perry has never
returned to the outer crust, and Innes but once—upon that
occasion when he made the difficult and dangerous return trip in
the prospector for the purpose of bringing back to the empire he
had founded in the inner world the means to bestow upon his
primitive people of the stone age the civilization of the twentieth
century.

But what with battles with primitive men and still
more primitive beasts and reptiles, the advance of the empire of
Pellucidar toward civilization has been small, and in so far as the
great area of the inner world is concerned or the countless
millions of its teeming life of another age than ours, David Innes
and Abner Perry might never have existed.

When one considers that these land and water areas
upon the surface of Pellucidar are in opposite relationship to the
same areas upon the outer crust, some slight conception of the vast
extent of this mighty world within a world may be dreamed.

The land area of the outer world comprises some
fifty-three million square miles or one-quarter of the total area
of the earth's surface; while within Pellucidar three-quarters of
the surface is land, so that jungle, mountain, forest and plain
stretch interminably over 124,110.000 square miles; nor are the
oceans with their area of 41,370,000 square miles of any mean or
niggardly extent.

Thus, considering the land area only, we have the
strange anomaly of a larger world within a smaller one, but then
Pellucidar is a world of deviation from what we of the outer crust
have come to accept as unalterable laws of nature.

In the exact center of the earth hangs
Pellucidar's sun, a tiny orb compared with ours, but sufficient to
illuminate Pellucidar and flood her teeming jungles with warmth and
life-giving rays. Her sun hanging thus perpetually at zenith, there
is no night upon Pellucidar, but always an endless eternity of
noon.

There being no stars and no apparent movement of
the sun, Pellucidar has no points of compass; nor has she any
horizon since her surface curves always upward in all directions
from the observer, so that far above one's line of vision plain or
sea or distant mountain range go onward and upward until lost in
the haze of the distance. And again, in a world where there is no
sun, no stars and no moon, such as we know. there can be no such
thing as time, as we know it. And so, in Pellucidar, we have a
timeless world which must necessarily be free from those pests who
are constantly calling our attention to "the busy little bee" and
to the fact that "time is money." While time may be "the soul of
this world" and the "essence of contracts," in the beatific
existence of Pellucidar it is nothing and less than nothing.

Thrice in the past have we of the outer world
received communication from Pellucidar. We know that Perry's first
great gift of civilization to the stone age was gunpowder. We know
that he followed this with repeating rifles, small ships of war
upon which were mounted guns of no great caliber, and finally we
know that he perfected a radio.

Knowing Perry as something of an empiric, we were
not surprised to learn that his radio could not be tuned in upon
any known wave or wave length of the outer world, and it remained
for young Jason Gridley of Tarzana, experimenting with his newly
discovered Gridley Wave, to pick up the first message from
Pellucidar.

The last word that we received from Perry before
his messages faltered and died out was to the effect that David
Innes, first Emperor of Pellucidar, was languishing in a dark
dungeon in the land of the Korsars, far across continent and ocean
from his beloved land of Sari, which lies upon a great plateau not
far inland from the Lural Az.

TARZAN OF THE APES paused to listen and to sniff
the air. Had you been there you could not have heard what he heard,
or had you you could not have interpreted it. You could have
smelled nothing but the mustiness of decaying vegetation, which
blended with the aroma of growing things.

The sounds that Tarzan heard came from a great distance and were
faint even to his ears, nor at first could he definitely ascribe
them to their true source, though he conceived the impression that
they heralded the coming of a party of men.

Buto the rhinoceros, Tantor the elephant or Numa the lion might
come and go through the forest without arousing more than the
indifferent interest of the Lord of the Jungle, but when man came
Tarzan investigated, for man alone of all creatures brings change
and dissension and strife wheresoever he first sets foot.

Reared to manhood among the great apes without knowledge of the
existence of any other creatures like himself, Tarzan had since
learned to anticipate with concern each fresh invasion of his
jungle by these two-footed harbingers of strife. Among many races
of men he had found friends, but this did not prevent him from
questioning the purposes and the motives of whosoever entered his
domain. And so today he moved silently through the middle terrace
of his leafy way in the direction of the sounds that he had
heard.

As the distance closed between him and those he went to
investigate, his keen ears cataloged the sound of padding, naked
feet and the song of native carriers as they swung along beneath
their heavy burdens. And then to his nostrils came the scent spoor
of black men and with it, faintly, the suggestion of another scent,
and Tarzan knew that a white man was on safari before the head of
the column came in view along the wide, well marked game trail,
above which the Lord of the Jungle waited.

Near the head of the column marched a young white man, and when
Tarzan's eyes had rested upon him for a moment as he swung along
the trail they impressed their stamp of approval of the stranger
within the ape-man's brain, for in common with many savage beasts
and primitive men Tarzan possessed an uncanny instinct in judging
aright the characters of strangers whom he met.

Turning about, Tarzan moved swiftly and silently through the
trees until he was some little distance ahead of the marching
safari, then he dropped down into the trail and awaited its
coming.

Rounding a curve in the trail the leading askari came in sight
of him and when they saw him they halted and commenced to jabber
excitedly, for these were men recruited in another
district—men who did not know Tarzan of the Apes by
sight.

"I am Tarzan," announced the ape-man. "What do you in Tarzan's
country?"

Immediately the young man, who had halted abreast of his askari,
advanced toward the ape-man. There was a smile upon his eager face.
"You are Lord Greystoke?" he asked.

"Here, I am Tarzan of the Apes," replied the foster son of
Kala.

"Then luck is certainly with me," said the young man, "for I
have come all the way from Southern California to find you."

"Who are you," demanded the ape-man, "and what do you want of
Tarzan of the Apes?"

"My name is Jason Gridley," replied the other. "And what I have
come to talk to you about will make a long story. I hope that you
can find the time to accompany me to our next camp and the patience
to listen to me there until I have explained my mission."

Tarzan nodded. "In the jungle," he said, "we are not often
pressed for time. Where do you intend making camp?"

"The guide that I obtained in the last village complained of
being ill and turned back an hour ago, and as none of my own men is
familiar with this country we do not know whether there is a
suitable camp-site within one mile or ten."

"There is one within half a mile," replied Tarzan, "and with
good water."

"Good," said Gridley; and the safari resumed its way, the
porters laughing and singing at the prospect of an early camp.

It was not until Jason and Tarzan were enjoying their coffee
that evening that the ape-man reverted to the subject of the
American's visit.

"And now," he said, "what has brought you all the way from
Southern California to the heart of Africa?"

Gridley smiled. "Now that I am actually here," he said, "and
face to face with you, I am suddenly confronted with the conviction
that after you have heard my story it is going to be difficult to
convince you that I am not crazy, and yet in my own mind I am so
thoroughly convinced of the truth of what I am going to tell you
that I have already invested a considerable amount of money and
time to place my plan before you for the purpose of enlisting your
personal and financial support, and I am ready and willing to
invest still more money and all of my time. Unfortunately I cannot
wholly finance the expedition that I have in mind from my personal
resources, but that is not primarily my reason for coming to you.
Doubtless I could have raised the necessary money elsewhere, but I
believe that you are peculiarly fitted to lead such a venture as I
have in mind."

"Whatever the expedition may be that you are contemplating,"
said Tarzan, "the potential profits must be great indeed if you are
willing to risk so much of your own money."

"On the contrary," replied Gridley, "there will be no financial
profit for anyone concerned in so far as I now know."

"And you are an American?" asked Tarzan, smiling.

"We are not all money mad," replied Gridley.

"Then what is the incentive? Explain the whole proposition to
me."

"Have you ever heard of the theory that the earth is a hollow
sphere, containing a habitable world within its interior?"

"The theory that has been definitely refuted by scientific
investigation," replied the ape-man.

"But has it been refuted satisfactorily?" asked Gridley.

"To the satisfaction of the scientists," replied Tarzan.

"And to my satisfaction, too," replied the American, "until I
recently received a message direct from the inner world."

"You surprise me," said the ape-man.

"And I, too, was surprised, but the fact remains that I have
been in radio communication with Abner Perry in the inner world of
Pellucidar and I have brought a copy of that message with me and
also an affidavit of its authenticity from a man with whose name
you are familiar and who was with me when I received the message;
in fact, he was listening in at the same time with me. Here they
are."

From a portfolio he took a letter which he handed to Tarzan and
a bulky manuscript bound in board covers.

"I shall not take the time to read you all of the story of Tanar
of Pellucidar," said Gridley, "because there is a great deal in it
that is not essential to the exposition of my plan."

"As you will," said Tarzan. "I am listening." For half an hour
Jason Gridley read excerpts from the manuscript before him. "This,"
he said, when he had completed the reading, "is what convinced me
of the existence of Pellucidar, and it is the unfortunate situation
of David Innes that impelled me to come to you with the proposal
that we undertake an expedition whose first purpose shall be to
rescue him from the dungeon of the Korsars."

"And how do you think this may be done?" asked the ape-man. "Are
you convinced of the correctness of Innes theory that there is an
entrance to the inner world at each pole?"

"I am free to confess that I do not know what to believe,"
replied the American. "But after I received this message from Perry
I commenced to investigate and I discovered that the theory of an
inhabitable world at the center of the earth with openings leading
into it at the north and south poles is no new one and that there
is much evidence to support it. I found a very complete exposition
of the theory in a book written about 1830 and in another work of
more recent time. Therein I found what seemed to be a reasonable
explanation of many well known phenomena that have not been
satisfactorily explained by any hypothesis endorsed by
science."

"What, for example?" asked Tarzan.

"Well, for example, warm winds and warm ocean currents coming
from the north and encountered and reported by practically all
arctic explorers; the presence of the limbs and branches of trees
with green foliage upon them floating southward from the far north,
far above the latitude where any such trees are found upon the
outer crust: then there is the phenomenon of the northern lights,
which in the light of David Innes' theory may easily be explained
as rays of light from the central sun of the inner world, breaking
occasionally through the fog and cloud banks above the polar
opening. Again there is the pollen, which often thickly covers the
snow and ice in portions of the polar regions. This pollen could
not come from elsewhere than the inner world. And in addition to
all this is the insistence of the far northern tribes of Eskimos
that their forefathers came from a country to the north."

"Did not Amundson and Ellsworth in the Norge expedition
definitely disprove the theory of a north polar opening in the
earth's crust, and have not airplane flights been made over a
considerable portion of the hitherto unexplored regions near the
pole?" demanded the ape-man.

"The answer to that is that the polar opening is so large that a
ship, a dirigible or an airplane could dip down over the edge into
it a short distance and return without ever being aware of the
fact, but the most tenable theory is that in most instances
explorers have merely followed around the outer rim of the orifice,
which would largely explain the peculiar and mystifying action of
compasses and other scientific instruments at points near the
so-called north pole—matters which have greatly puzzled all
arctic explorers."

"You are convinced then that there is not only an inner world
but that there is an entrance to it at the north pole?" asked
Tarzan.

"I am convinced that there is an inner world, but I am not
convinced of the existence of a polar opening," replied Gridley. "I
can only say that I believe there is sufficient evidence to warrant
the organization of an expedition such as I have suggested."

"Assuming that a polar opening into an inner world exists, by
just what means do you purpose accomplishing the discovery and
exploration of it?"

"The most practical means of transportation that exists today
for carrying out my plan would be a specially constructed rigid
airship, built along the lines of the modern Zeppelin. Such a ship,
using helium gas, would show a higher factor of safety than any
other means of transportation at our disposal. I have given the
matter considerable thought and I feel sure that if there is such a
polar opening, the obstacles that would confront us in an attempt
to enter the inner world would be far less than those encountered
by the Norge in its famous trip across the pole to Alaska, for
there is no question in my mind but that it made a wide detour in
following the rim of the polar orifice and covered a far greater
distance than we shall have to cover to reach a reasonably safe
anchorage below the cold, polar sea that David Innes discovered
north of the land of the Korsars before he was finally taken
prisoner by them.

"The greatest risk that we would have to face would be a
possible inability to return to the outer crust, owing to the
depletion of our helium gas that might be made necessary by the
maneuvering of the ship. But that is only the same chance of life
or death that every explorer and scientific investigator must be
willing to assume in the prosecution of his labors. If it were but
possible to build a hull sufficiently light, and at the same time
sufficiently strong, to withstand atmospheric pressure, we could
dispense with both the dangerous hydrogen gas and the rare and
expensive helium gas and have the assurance of the utmost safety
and maximum of buoyancy in a ship supported entirely by vacuum
tanks."

"Perhaps even that is possible," said Tarzan, who was now
evincing increasing interest in Gridley's proposition.

The American shook his head. "It may be possible some day," he
said, "but not at present with any known material. Any receptacle
having sufficient strength to withstand the atmospheric pressure
upon a vacuum would have a weight far too great for the vacuum to
lift."

"Perhaps," said Tarzan, "and, again, perhaps not."

"What do you mean?" inquired Gridley.

"What you have just said," replied Tarzan, "reminds me of
something that a young friend of mine recently told me. Erich von
Harben is something of a scientist and explorer himself, and the
last time that I saw him he had just returned from a second
expedition into the Wiramwazi Mountains, where he told me that he
had discovered a lake-dwelling tribe using canoes made of a metal
that was apparently as light as cork and stronger than steel. He
brought some samples of the metal back with him, and at the time I
last saw him he was conducting some experiments in a little
laboratory he has rigged up at his father's mission."

"Where is this man?" demanded Gridley.

"Dr. von Harben's mission is in the Urambi country," replied the
ape-man, "about four marches west of where we now are."

Far into the night the two men discussed plans for the project,
for Tarzan was now thoroughly interested, and the next day they
turned back toward the Urambi country and von Harben's mission,
where they arrived on the fourth day and were greeted by Dr. von
Harben and his son, Erich, as well as by the latter's wife, the
beautiful Favonia of Castrum Mare.

It is not my intention to weary you with a recital of the
details of the organization and equipment of the Pellucidarian
expedition, although that portion of it which relates to the search
for and discovery of the native mine containing the remarkable
metal now known as Harbenite, filled as it was with adventure and
excitement, is well worth a volume by itself.

While Tarzan and Erich von Harben were locating the mine and
transporting the metal to the seacoast, Jason Gridley was in
Friedrichshafen in consultation with the engineers of the company
he had chosen to construct the specially designed airship in which
the attempt was to be made to reach the inner world.

Exhaustive tests were made of the samples of Harbenite brought
to Friedrichshafen by Jason Gridley. Plans were drawn, and by the
time the shipment of the ore arrived everything was in readiness to
commence immediate construction, which was carried on secretly. And
six months later, when the O-220, as it was officially known, was
ready to take the air, it was generally considered to be nothing
more than a new design of the ordinary type of rigid airship,
destined to be used as a common carrier upon one of the already
numerous commercial airways of Europe.

The great cigar-shaped hull of the O-220 was 997 feet in length
and 150 feet in diameter. The interior of the hull was divided into
six large, air-tight compartments, three of which, running the full
length of the ship, were above the medial line and three below.
Inside the hull and running along each side of the ship, between
the upper and lower vacuum tanks, were long corridors in which were
located the engines, motors and pumps, in addition to supplies of
gasoline and oil.

The internal location of the engine room was made possible by
the elimination of fire risk, which is an ever-present source of
danger in airships which depend for their lifting power upon
hydrogen gas, as well as to the absolutely fireproof construction
of the O-220, every part of which, with the exception of a few
cabin fittings and furniture, was of Harbenite, this metal being
used throughout except for certain bushings and bearings in motors,
generators and propellers.

Connecting the port and starboard engine and fuel corridors were
two transverse corridors, one forward and one aft, while bisecting
these transverse corridors were two climbing shafts extending from
the bottom of the ship to the top.

The upper end of the forward climbing shaft terminated in a
small gun and observation cabin at the top of the ship, along which
was a narrow walking-way extending from the forward cabin to a
small turret near the tail of the ship, where provision had been
made for fixing a machine gun.

The main cabin, running along the keel of the ship, was an
integral part of the hull, and because of this entirely rigid
construction, which eliminated the necessity for cabins suspended
below the hull, the O-220 was equipped with landing gear in the
form of six, large, heavily tired wheels projecting below the
bottom of the main cabin. In the extreme stern of the keel cabin a
small scout monoplane was carried in such a way that it could be
lowered through the bottom of the ship and launched while the O-220
was in flight.

Eight air-cooled motors drove as many propellers, which were
arranged in pairs upon either side of the ship and staggered in
such a manner that the air from the forward propellers would not
interfere with those behind.

The engines, developing 5600 horsepower, were capable of driving
the ship at a speed of 105 miles per hour.

In the O-220 the ordinary axial wire, which passes the whole
length of the ship through the center, consisted of a tubular shaft
of Harbenite from which smaller tubular braces radiated, like the
spokes of a wheel, to the tubular girders, to which the Harbenite
plates of the outer envelope were welded.

Owing to the extreme lightness of Harbenite, the total weight,
of the ship was 75 tons, while the total lift of its vacuum tanks
was 225 tons.

For purposes of maneuvering the ship and to facilitate landing,
each of the vacuum tanks was equipped with a bank of eight air
valves operated from the control cabin at the forward end of the
keel; while six pumps, three in the starboard and three in the port
engine corridors, were designed to expel the air from the tanks
when it became necessary to renew the vacuum. Special rudders and
elevators were also operated from the forward control cabin as well
as from an auxiliary position aft in the port engine corridor, in
the event that the control cabin steering gear should break
down.

In the main keel cabin were located the quarters for the
officers and crew, gun and ammunition room, provision room, galley,
additional gasoline and oil storage tanks, and water tanks, the
latter so constructed that the contents of any of them might be
emptied instantaneously in case of an emergency, while a proportion
of the gasoline and oil tanks were slip tanks that might be slipped
through the bottom of the ship in cases of extreme emergency when
it was necessary instantaneously to reduce the weight of the
load.

This, then, briefly, was the great, rigid airship in which Jason
Gridley and Tarzan of the Apes hoped to discover the north polar
entrance to the inner world and rescue David Innes, Emperor of
Pellucidar, from the dungeons of the Korsars.

JUST before daybreak of a clear June morning, the
O-220 moved slowly from its hangar under its own power. Fully
leaded and equipped, it was to make its test flight under load
conditions identical with those which would obtain when it set
forth upon its long journey. The three lower tanks were still
filled with air and she carried an excess of water ballast
sufficient to overcome her equilibrium, so that while she moved
lightly over the ground she moved with entire safety and could be
maneuvered almost as handily as an automobile.

As she came into the open her pumps commenced to expel the air
from the three lower tanks and at the same time a portion of her
excess water ballast was slowly discharged, and almost immediately
the huge ship rose slowly and gracefully from the ground.

The entire personnel of the ship's company during the test
flight was the same that had been selected for the expedition.

Zuppner, who had been chosen as captain, had been in charge of
the construction of the ship and had a considerable part in its
designing. There were two mates, Von Horst and Dorf, who had been
officers in the Imperial air forces, as also had the navigator,
Lieutenant Hines. In addition to these there were twelve engineers
and eight mechanics, a negro cook and two Filipino cabin-boys.

Tarzan was commander of the expedition, with Jason Gridley as
his lieutenant, while the fighting men of the ship consisted of
Muviro and nine of his Waziri warriors.

As the ship rose gracefully above the city, Zuppner, who was at
the controls, could scarcely restrain his enthusiasm.

"The sweetest thing I ever saw!" he exclaimed. "She responds to
the lightest touch."

"There you go again, Lieutenant," said Tarzan, laughing, "but do
not think that my insistence upon a large crew was based upon any
lack of confidence in the ship. We are going into a strange world.
We may be gone a long time. If we reach our destination we shall
have fighting, as each of you men who volunteered has been informed
many times, so that while we may have twice as many men as we need
for the trip in, we may yet find ourselves short-handed on the
return journey, for not all of us will return."

"I suppose you are right," said Hines, "but with the feel of
this ship permeating me and the quiet peacefulness of the scene
below, danger and death seem remote."

"I hope they are," returned Tarzan, "and I hope that we shall
return with every man that goes out with us, but I believe in being
prepared and to that end Gridley and I have been studying
navigation and we want you to give us a chance at some practical
experience before we reach our destination."

Zuppner laughed. "They have you marked already, Hines," he
said.

The Lieutenant grinned. "I'll teach them all I know," he said,
"but I'll bet the best dinner that can be served in Berlin that if
this ship returns I'll still be her navigator."

"That is a case of heads-I-win, tails-you-lose," said
Gridley.

"And to return to the subject of preparedness," said Tarzan, "I
am going to ask you to let my Waziri help the mechanics and
engineers. They are highly intelligent men, quick to learn, and if
some calamity should overtake us we cannot have too many men
familiar with the engines and other machinery of the ship."

The longer they were in the air the more enthusiastic Zuppner
became. "I had every confidence in the successful outcome of the
trial flight," he said, "but I can assure you that I did not look
for such perfection as I find in this ship. It marks a new era in
aeronautics, and I am convinced that long before we cover the four
hundred miles to Hamburg that we shall have established the entire
airworthiness of the O-220 to the entire satisfaction of each of
us."

"To Hamburg and return to Friedrichshafen was to have been the
route of the trial trip," said Tarzan, "but why turn back at
Hamburg?"

The others turned questioning eyes upon him as the purport of
his query sank home.

"Yes, why?" demanded Gridley.

Zuppner shrugged his shoulders. "We are fully equipped and
provisioned," he said.

"If you are all agreeable we shall continue on toward the
north," said Tarzan. And so it was that the trial trip of the O-220
became an actual start upon its long journey toward the interior of
the earth, and the secrecy that was desired for the expedition was
insured.

The plan had been to follow the Tenth Meridian east of Greenwich
north to the pole. But to avoid attracting unnecessary notice a
slight deviation from this course was found desirable, and the ship
passed to the west of Hamburg and out across the waters of the
North Sea, and thus due north, passing to the west of Spitsbergen
and out across the frozen polar wastes.

Maintaining an average cruising speed of about 75 miles per
hour, the O-220 reached the vicinity of the north pole about
midnight of the second day, and excitement ran high when Hines
announced that in accordance with his calculation they should be
directly over the pole. At Tarzan's suggestion the ship circled
slowly at an altitude of a few hundred feet above the rough,
snow-covered ice.

"We ought to be able to recognize it by the Italian flags," said
Zuppner, with a smile. But if any reminders of the passage of the
Norge remained below them, they were effectually hidden by the
mantle of many snows.

The ship made a single circle above the desolate ice pack before
she took up her southerly course along the 170th East Meridian.

From the moment that the ship struck south from the pole Jason
Gridley remained constantly with Hines and Zuppner eagerly and
anxiously watching the instruments, or gazing down upon the bleak
landscape ahead. It was Gridley's belief that the north polar
opening lay in the vicinity of 85 north latitude and 170 east
longitude. Before him were compass, aneroids, bubble statoscope,
air speed indicator, inclinometers, rise and fall indicator,
bearing plate, clock and thermometers; but the instrument that
commanded his closest attention was the compass, for Jason Gridley
held a theory and upon the correctness of it depended their success
in finding the north polar opening.

For five hours the ship flew steadily toward the south, when she
developed an apparent tendency to fall off toward the west.

"Hold her steady, Captain," cautioned Gridley, "for if I am
correct we are now going over the lip of the polar opening, and the
deviation is in the compass only and not in our course. The further
we go along this course the more erratic the compass will become
and if we were presently to move upward, or in other words,
straight out across the polar opening toward its center, the needle
would spin erratically in a circle. But we could not reach the
center of the polar opening because of the tremendous altitude
which this would require. I believe that we are now on the eastern
verge of the opening and if whatever deviation from the present
course you make is to the starboard we shall slowly spiral downward
into Pellucidar, but your compass will be useless for the next four
to six hundred miles."

Zuppner shook his head, dubiously. "If this weather holds, we
may be able to do it," he said, "but if it commences to blow I
doubt my ability to keep any sort of a course if I am not to follow
the compass."

"Do the best you can," said Gridley, "and when in doubt put her
to starboard."

So great was the nervous strain upon all of them that for hours
at a time scarcely a word was exchanged.

"Look!" exclaimed Hines suddenly. "There is open water just
ahead of us."

"That, of course, we might expect," said Zuppner, "even if there
is no polar opening, and you know that I have been skeptical about
that ever since Gridley first explained his theory to me."

"I think," said Gridley, with a smile, "that really I am the
only one in the party who has had any faith at all in the theory,
but please do not call it my theory for it is not, and even I
should not have been surprised had the theory proven to be a false
one. But if any of you has been watching the sun for the last few
hours, I think that you will have to agree with me that even though
there may be no polar opening into an inner world, there must be a
great depression at this point in the earth's crust and that we
have gone down into it for a considerable distance, for you will
notice that the midnight sun is much lower than it should be and
that the further we continue upon this course the lower it
drops—eventually it will set completely, and if I am not much
mistaken we shall soon see the light of the eternal noonday sun of
Pellucidar."

Suddenly the telephone rang and Hines put the receiver to his
ear. "Very good, sir," he said, after a moment, and hung up. "It
was Von Horst, Captain, reporting from the observation cabin. He
has sighted land dead ahead."

"Land!" exclaimed Zuppner. "The only land our chart shows in
this direction is Siberia."

"Siberia lies over a thousand miles south of 85, and we cannot
be over three hundred miles south of 85," said Gridley.

"Then we have either discovered a new arctic land, or we are
approaching the northern frontiers of Pellucidar," said Lieutenant
Hines.

"You can see the land plainly now," said Tarzan. "It looks
desolate enough, but there are only little patches of snow here and
there."

"This corresponds with the land Innes described north of
Korsar," said Gridley.

Word was quickly passed around the ship to the other officers
and the crew that there was reason to believe that the land below
them was Pellucidar. Excitement ran high, and every man who could
spare a moment from his duties was aloft on the walking-way, or
peering through portholes for a glimpse of the inner world.

Steadily the O-220 forged southward and just as the rim of the
midnight sun disappeared from view below the horizon astern, the
glow of Pellucidar's central sun was plainly visible ahead.

The nature of the landscape below was changing rapidly. The
barren land had fallen astern, the ship had crossed a range of
wooded hills and now before it lay a great forest that stretched on
and on seemingly curving upward to be lost eventually in the haze
of the distance. This was indeed Pellucidar—the Pellucidar of
which Jason Gridley had dreamed.

Beyond the forest lay a rolling plain dotted with clumps of
trees, a well-watered plain through which wound numerous streams,
which emptied into a large river at its opposite side.

Great herds of game were grazing in the open pasture land and
nowhere was there sight of man.

"This looks like heaven to me," said Tarzan of the Apes. "Let us
land, Captain."

Slowly the great ship came to earth as air was taken into the
lower vacuum tanks.

Short ladders were run out, for the bottom of the cabin was only
six feet above the ground, and presently the entire ship's company,
with the exception of a watch of an officer and two men, were knee
deep in the lush grasses of Pellucidar.

"I thought we might get some fresh meat," said Tarzan, "but the
ship has frightened all the game away."

"From the quantity of it I saw, we shall not have to go far to
bag some," said Dorf.

"What we need most right now, however, is rest," said Tarzan.
"For weeks every man has been working at high pitch in completing
the preparation for the expedition and I doubt if one of us has had
over two hours sleep in the last three days. I suggest that we
remain here until we are all thoroughly rested and then take up a
systematic search for the city of Korsar."

The plan met with general approval and preparations were made
for a stay of several days.

"I believe," said Gridley to Captain Zuppner, "that it would be
well to issue strict orders that no one is to leave the ship, or
rather its close vicinity, without permission from you and that no
one be allowed to venture far afield except in parties commanded by
an officer, for we have every assurance that we shall meet with
savage men, and far more savage beasts everywhere within
Pellucidar."

"I hope that you will except me from that order," said Tarzan,
smiling.

"I believe that you can take care of yourself in any country,"
said Zuppner.

"And I can certainly hunt to better effect alone than I can with
a party," said the ape-man.

"In any event," continued Zuppner, "the order comes from you as
commander, and no one will complain if you exempt yourself from its
provisions since I am sure that none of the rest of us is
particularly anxious to wander about Pellucidar alone."

Officers and men, with the exception of the watch, which changed
every four hours, slept the clock around.

Tarzan of the Apes was the first to complete his sleep and leave
the ship. He had discarded the clothing that had encumbered and
annoyed him since he had left his own African jungle to join in the
preparation of the O-220, and it was no faultlessly attired
Englishman that came from the cabin and dropped to the ground
below, but instead an almost naked and primitive warrior, armed
with hunting knife, spear, a bow and arrows, and the long rope
which Tarzan always carried, for in the hunt he preferred the
weapons of his youth to the firearms of civilization.

Lieutenant Dorf, the only officer on duty at the time, saw him
depart and watched with unfeigned admiration as the black-haired
jungle lord moved across the open plain and disappeared in the
forest.

There were trees that were familiar to the eyes of the ape-man,
and trees such as he had never seen before, but it was a forest and
that was enough to lure Tarzan of the Apes and permit him to forget
the last few weeks that had been spent amidst the distasteful
surroundings of civilization. He was happy to be free from the
ship, too, and, while he liked all his companions, he was yet glad
to be alone.

In the first flight of his new-found freedom Tarzan was like a
boy released from school. Unhampered by the hated vestments of
civilization, out of sight of anything that might even remotely
remind him of the atrocities with which man scars the face of
nature, he filled his lungs with the free air of Pellucidar, leaped
into a nearby tree and swung away through the forest, his only
concern for the moment the joyousness of exultant vitality and
life. On he sped through the primeval forest of' Pellucidar.
Strange birds, startled by his swift and silent passage, flew
screaming from his path, and strange beasts slunk to cover beneath
him. But Tarzan did not care; he was not hunting; he was not even
searching for the new in this new world. For the moment he was only
living.

While this mood dominated him Tarzan gave no thought to the
passage of time any more than he had given thought to the
timelessness of Pellucidar, whose noonday sun, hanging perpetually
at zenith, gives a lie to us of the outer crust who rush
frantically through life in mad and futile effort to beat the earth
in her revolutions. Nor did Tarzan reckon upon distance or
direction, for such matters were seldom the subjects of conscious
consideration upon the part of the ape-man, whose remarkable
ability to meet every and any emergency he unconsciously attributed
to powers that lay within himself, not stopping to consider that in
his own jungle he relied upon the friendly sun and moon and stars
as guides by day and night, and to the myriad familiar things that
spoke to him in a friendly, voiceless language that only the jungle
people can interpret.

As his mood changed Tarzan reduced his speed, and presently he
dropped to the ground in a well-marked game trail. Now he let his
eyes take in the new wonders all about him. He noticed the
evidences of great age as betokened by the enormous size of the
trees and the hoary stems of the great vines that clung to many of
them—suggestions of age that made his own jungle seem
modern—and he marveled at the gorgeous flowers that bloomed
in riotous profusion upon every hand, and then of a sudden
something gripped him about the body and snapped him high into the
air.

Tarzan of the Apes had nodded. His mind occupied with the
wonders of this new world had permitted a momentary relaxation of
that habitual wariness that distinguishes creatures of the
wild.

Almost in the instant of its occurrence the ape-man realized
what what had befallen him. Although he could easily imagine its
disastrous sequel, the suggestion of a smile touched his
lips—a rueful smile—and one that was perhaps tinged
with disgust for himself, for Tarzan of the Apes had been caught in
as primitive a snare as was ever laid for unwary beasts.

A rawhide noose, attached to the downbent limb of an overhanging
tree, had been buried in the trail along which he had been passing
and he had struck the trigger—that was the whole story. But
its sequel might have had less unfortunate possibilities had the
noose not pinioned his arms to his sides as it closed about
him.

He hung about six feet above the trail, caught securely about
the hips, the noose imprisoning his arms between elbows and wrists
and pinioning them securely to his sides. And to add to his
discomfort and helplessness, he swung head downward, spinning
dizzily like a human plumb-bob.

He tried to draw an arm from the encircling noose so that he
might reach his hunting knife and free himself, but the weight of
his body constantly drew the noose more tightly about him and every
effort upon his part seemed but to strengthen the relentless grip
of the rawhide that was pressing deep into his flesh.

He knew that the snare meant the presence of men and that
doubtless they would soon come to inspect their noose, for his own
knowledge of primitive hunting taught him that they would not leave
their snares long untended, since in the event of a catch, if they
would have it at all, they must claim it soon lest it fall prey to
carnivorous beasts or birds. He wondered what sort of people they
were and if he might not make friends with them, but whatever they
were he hoped that they would come before the beasts of prey came.
And while such thoughts were running through his mind, his keen
ears caught the sound of approaching footsteps, but they were not
the steps of men. Whatever was approaching was approaching across
the wind and he could detect no scent spoor; nor, upon the other
hand, he realized, could the beast scent him. It was coming
leisurely and as it neared him, but before it came in sight along
the trail, he knew that it was a hoofed animal and, therefore, that
he had little reason to fear its approach unless, indeed, it might
prove to be some strange Pellucidarian creature with
characteristics entirely unlike any that he knew upon the outer
crust.

But even as he permitted these thoughts partially to reassure
him, there came strongly to his nostrils a scent that always caused
the short hairs upon his head to rise, not in fear but in natural
reaction to the presence of an hereditary enemy. It was not an odor
that he had ever smelled before. It was not the scent spoor of Numa
the lion, nor Sheeta the leopard, but it was the scent spoor of
some sort of great cat. And now he could hear its almost silent
approach through the underbrush and he knew that it was coming down
toward the trail, lured either by knowledge of his presence or by
that of the beast whose approach Tarzan had been awaiting.

It was the latter who came first into view—a great ox-like
animal with wide-spread horns and shaggy coat—a huge bull
that advanced several yards along the trail after Tarzan discovered
it before it saw the ape-man dangling in front of it. It was the
thag of Pellucidar, the Bos Primigenus of the paleontologist of the
outer crust, a long extinct progenitor of the bovine races of our
own world.

For a moment it stood eyeing the man dangling in its path.

Tarzan remained very quiet. He did not wish to frighten it away
for he realized that one of them must be the prey of the carnivore
sneaking upon them, but if he expected the thag to be frightened he
soon realized his error in judgment for, uttering low grumblings,
the great bull pawed the earth with a front foot, and then,
lowering his massive horns, gored it angrily, and the ape-man knew
that he was working his short temper up to charging pitch; nor did
it seem that this was to take long for already he was advancing
menacingly to the accompaniment of thunderous bellowing. His tail
was up and his head down as he broke into the trot that precluded
the charge.

The ape-man realized that if he was ever struck by those massive
horns or that heavy head, his skull would be crushed like an
eggshell.

The dizzy spinning that had been caused by the first stretching
of the rawhide to his weight had lessened to a gentle turning
motion; so that sometimes he faced the thag and sometimes in the
opposite direction. The utter helplessness of his position galled
the ape-man and gave him more concern than any consideration of
impending death. From childhood he had walked hand in hand with the
Grim Reaper and he had looked upon death in so many forms that it
held no terror for him. He knew that it was the final experience of
all created things, that it must as inevitably come to him as to
others and while he loved life and did not wish to die, its mere
approach induced within him no futile hysteria. But to die without
a chance to fight for life was not such an end as Tarzan of the
Apes would have chosen. And now, as his body slowly revolved and
his eyes were turned away from the charging thag, his heart sank at
the thought that he was not even to be vouchsafed the meager
satisfaction of meeting death face to face.

In the brief instant that he waited for the impact, the air was
rent by as horrid a scream as had ever broken upon the ears of the
ape-man and the bellowing of the bull rose suddenly to a higher
pitch and mingled with that other awesome sound.

Once more the dangling body of the ape-man revolved and his eyes
fell upon such a scene as had not been vouchsafed to men of the
outer world for countless ages.

Upon the massive shoulders and neck of the great thag clung a
tiger of such huge proportions that Tarzan could scarce credit the
testimony of his own eyes. Great saber-like tusks, projecting from
the upper jaw, were buried deep in the neck of the bull, which,
instead of trying to escape, had stopped in its tracks and was
endeavoring to dislodge the great beast of prey, swinging its huge
horns backward in an attempt to rake the living death from its
shoulders, or again shaking its whole body violently for the same
purpose and all the while bellowing in pain and rage.

Gradually the saber-tooth changed its position until it had
attained a hold suited to its purpose. Then with lightning-like
swiftness it swung back a great forearm and delivered a single,
terrific blow on the side of the thag's head—a titanic blow
that crushed that mighty skull and dropped the huge bull dead in
its tracks. And then the carnivore settled down to feast upon its
kill.

During the battle the saber-tooth had not noticed the ape-man;
nor was it until after he had commenced to feed upon the thag that
his eye was attracted by the revolving body swinging above the
trail a few yards away. Instantly the beast stopped feeding; his
head lowered and flattened, his upper lip turned back in a hideous
snarl. He watched the ape-man. Low, menacing growls rumbled from
his cavernous throat; his long, sinuous tail lashed angrily as
slowly he arose from the body of his kill and advanced toward
Tarzan of the Apes.

THE ebbing tide of the great war had left human
flotsam stranded upon many an unfamiliar beach. In its full flow it
had lifted Robert Jones, high private in the ranks of a labor
battalion, from uncongenial surroundings and landed him in a prison
camp behind the enemy line. Here his good nature won him friends
and favors, but neither one nor the other served to obtain his
freedom.

Robert Jones seemed to have been lost in the shuffle. And
finally, when the evacuation of the prison had been completed,
Robert Jones still remained, but he was not down-hearted. He had
learned the language of his captors and had made many friends among
them. They found him a job and Robert Jones of Alabama was content
to remain where he was. He had been graduated from body servant to
cook of an officer's mess and it was in this capacity that he had
come under the observation of Captain Zuppner, who had drafted him
for the O-220 expedition.

Robert Jones yawned, stretched, turned over in his narrow berth
aboard the O-220, opened his eyes and sat up with an exclamation of
surprise. He jumped to the floor and stuck his head out of an open
port.

"Lawd!" he exclaimed; "you all suah done overslep' yo'sef."

For a moment he gazed up at the noonday sun shining down upon
him and then, hastily dressing, hurried into his galley.

"'S funny," he soliloquized; "dey ain't no one
stirrin'—mus' all of overslep' demsef." He looked at the
clock on the galley wall. The hour hand pointed to six. He cocked
his ear and listened. "She ain't stopped," he muttered. Then he
went to the door that opened from the galley through the ship's
side and pushed it back. Leaning far out he looked up again at the
sun. Then he shook his head. "Dey's sumpin wrong," he said. "Ah
dunno whether to cook breakfas', dinner or supper."

Jason Gridley, emerging from his cabin, sauntered down the
narrow corridor toward the galley. "Good morning, Bob," he said,
stopping in the open doorway. "What's the chance for a bite of
breakfast?"

"Did you all say breakfas', suh?" inquired Robert.

"Yes," replied Gridley; "just toast and coffee and a couple of
eggs—anything you have handy."

Gridley grinned. "I'll drop down and have a little walk," he
said. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes. Have you seen anything of
Lord Greystoke?"

"No suh, Ah ain't seen nothin' o' Ta'zan sence yesterday."

"I wondered," said Gridley; "he is not in his cabin."

For fifteen minutes Gridley walked briskly about in the vicinity
of the ship. When he returned to the mess room he found Zuppner and
Dorf awaiting breakfast and greeted them with a pleasant "good
morning."

"I don't know whether it's good morning or good evening," said
Zuppner.

"We have been here twelve hours," said Dorf, "and it is just the
same time that it was when we arrived. I have been on watch for the
last four hours and if it hadn't been for the chronometer I could
not swear that I had been on fifteen minutes or that I had not been
on a week."

"It certainly induces a feeling of unreality that is hard to
explain," said Gridley.

"Where is Greystoke?" asked Zuppner. "He is usually an early
riser."

"I was just asking Bob," said Gridley, "but he has not seen
him."

"He left the ship shortly after I came on watch," said Dorf. "I
should say about three hours ago, possibly longer. I saw him cross
the open country and enter the forest."

"I wish he had not gone out alone," said Gridley.

"He strikes me as a man who can take care of himself," said
Zuppner.

"I have seen some things during the last four hours," said Dorf,
"that make me doubt whether any man can take care of himself alone
in this world, especially one armed only with the primitive weapons
that Greystoke carried with him."

"You mean that he carried no firearms?" demanded Zuppner.

"He was armed with a bow and arrows, a spear and a rope," said
Dorf, "and I think he carried a hunting knife as well. But he might
as well have had nothing but a peashooter if he met some of the
things I have seen since I went on watch."

"What do you mean?" demanded Zuppner. "What have you seen?"

Dorf grinned sheepishly. "Honestly, Captain, I hate to tell
you," he said, "for I'm damned if I believe it myself."

"Well, out with it," exclaimed Zuppner. "We will make allowances
for your youth and for the effect that the sun and horizon of
Pellucidar may have had upon your eyesight or your veracity."

"Well," said Dorf, "about an hour ago a bear passed within a
hundred yards of the ship."

"There is nothing remarkable about that," said Zuppner.

"There was a great deal that was remarkable about the bear,
however," said Dorf.

"In, what way?" asked Gridley.

"It was fully as large as an ox," said Dorf, "and if I were
going out after bear in this country I should want to take along
field artillery."

"Was that all you saw—just a bear?" asked Zuppner.

"No," said Dorf, "I saw tigers, not one but fully a dozen, and
they were as much larger than our Bengal tigers as the bear was
larger than any bear of the outer crust that I have ever seen. They
were perfectly enormous and they were armed with the most amazing
fangs you ever saw—great curved fangs that extended from
their upper jaws to lengths of from eight inches to a foot. They
came down to this stream here to drink and then wandered away, some
of them toward the forest and some down toward that big river
yonder."

"Greystoke couldn't do much against such creatures as those even
if he had carried a rifle," said Zuppner.

"If he was in the forest, he could escape them," said
Gridley.

Zuppner shook his head. "I don't like the looks of it," he said.
"I wish that he had not gone out alone."

"The bear and the tigers were bad enough," continued Dorf, "but
I saw another creature that to me seemed infinitely worse."

Robert, who was more or less a privileged character, had entered
from the galley and was listening with wide-eyed interest to Dorf's
account of the creatures he had seen, while Victor, one of the
Filipino cabin-boys, served the officers.

"Yes," continued Dorf, "I saw a mighty strange creature. It flew
directly over the ship and I had an excellent view of it. At first
I thought that it was a bird, but when it approached more closely I
saw that it was a winged reptile.

"It had a long, narrow head and it flew so close that I could
see its great jaws, armed with an infinite number of long, sharp
teeth. Its head was elongated above the eyes and came to a sharp
point. It was perfectly immense and must have had a wing spread of
at least twenty feet. While I was watching it, it dropped suddenly
to earth only a short distance beyond the ship, and when it arose
again it was carrying in its talons some animal that must have been
fully as large as a good sized sheep, with which it flew away
without apparent effort. That the creature is carnivorous is
evident as is also the fact that it has sufficient strength to
carry away a man."

Robert Jones covered his large mouth with a pink palm and with
hunched and shaking shoulders turned and tiptoed from the room.
Once in the galley with the door closed, he gave himself over to
unrestrained mirth.

"What is the matter with you?" asked Victor.

"Lawd-a-massy!" exclaimed Robert. "Ah allus thought some o' dem
gem'n in dat dere Adventurous Club in Bummingham could lie some,
but, shucks, dey ain't in it with this Lieutenant Dorf. Did you all
heah him tell about dat flyin' snake what carries off sheep?"

But back in the mess room Dorf's statement was taken more
seriously.

"That would be a pterodactyl," said Zuppner.

"Yes," replied Dorf. "I classified it as a Pteranodon."

"Don't you think we ought to send out a search party?" asked
Gridley.

"I am afraid Greystoke would not like it," replied Zuppner.

"It could go out under the guise of a hunting party," suggested
Dorf.

"If he has not returned within an hour," said Zuppner, "we shall
have to do something of the sort."

Hines and Von Horst now entered the mess room, and when they
learned of Tarzan's absence from the ship and had heard from Dorf a
description of some of the animals that he might have encountered,
they were equally as apprehensive as the others of his safety.

"We might cruise around a bit, sir," suggested Von Horst to
Zuppner.

"But suppose he returns to this spot during our absence?" asked
Gridley.

"Could you return the ship to this anchorage again?" inquired
Zuppner.

"I doubt it," replied the Lieutenant. "Our instruments are
almost worthless under the conditions existing in Pellucidar."

"Then we had better remain where we are," said Gridley, "until
he returns."

"But if we send a searching party after him on foot, what
assurance have we that it will be able to find its way back to the
ship?" demanded Zuppner.

"That will not be so difficult," said Gridley. "We can always
blaze our trail as we go and thus easily retrace our steps."

"Yes, that is so," agreed Zuppner.

"Suppose," said Gridley, "that Von Horst and I go out with
Muviro and his Waziri. They are experienced trackers, prime
fighting men and they certainly know the jungle."

"Not this jungle," said Dorf.

"But at least they know any jungle better than the rest of us,"
insisted Gridley.

"I think your plan is a good one," said Zuppner, "and anyway as
you are in command now, the rest of us gladly place ourselves under
your orders."

"The conditions that confront us here are new to all of us,"
said Gridley. "Nothing that anyone of us can suggest or command can
be based upon any personal experience or knowledge that the rest do
not possess, and in matters of this kind I think that we had better
reach our decision after full discussion rather than to depend
blindly upon official priority of authority."

"That has been Greystoke's policy," said Zuppner, "and it has
made it very easy and pleasant for all of us. I quite agree with
you, but I can think of no more feasible plan than that which you
have suggested."

The officer grinned. "Will I?" he exclaimed. "I should never
have forgiven you if you had left me out of it."

"Fine," said Gridley. "And now, I think, we might as well make
our preparations at once and get as early a start as possible. See
that the Waziri have eaten, Lieutenant, and tell Muviro that I want
them armed with rifles. These fellows can use them all right, but
they rather look with scorn upon anything more modern than their
war spears and arrows."

"Yes, I discovered that," said Hines. "Muviro told me a few days
ago that his people consider firearms as something of an admission
of cowardice. He told me that they use them for target practice,
but when they go out after lions or rhino they leave their rifles
behind and take their spears and arrows."

"After they have seen what I saw," said Dorf, "they will have
more respect for an express rifle."

"See that they take plenty of ammunition, Von Horst," said
Gridley, "for from what I have seen in this country we shall not
have to carry any provisions."

"A man who could not live off this country would starve to death
in a meat market," said Zuppner.

Von Horst left to carry out Gridley's orders while the latter
returned to his cabin to prepare for the expedition. The officers
and crew remaining with the O-220 were all on hand to bid farewell
to the expedition starting out in search of Tarzan of the Apes, and
as the ten stalwart Waziri warriors marched away behind Gridley and
Von Horst, Robert Jones, watching from the galley door, swelled
with pride. "All dem flyin' snakes bettah clear out de country
now," he exclaimed. With the others Robert watched the little party
as it crossed the plain and until it had disappeared within the
dark precincts of the forest upon the opposite side. Then he
glanced up at the noonday sun, shook his head, elevated his palms
in resignation and turned back into his galley.

Almost immediately after the party had left the ship, Gridley
directed Muviro to take the lead and watch for Tarzan's trail
since, of the entire party, he was the most experienced tracker;
nor did the Waziri chieftain have any difficulty in following the
spoor of the ape-man across the plain and into the forest, but
here, beneath a great tree, it disappeared.

"The Big Bwana took to the trees here," said Muviro, "and no man
lives who can follow his spoor through the lower, the middle or the
upper terraces."

"What do you suggest, then, Muviro?" asked Gridley.

"If this were his own jungle," replied the warrior, "I should
feel sure that when he took to the trees he would move in a
straight line toward the place he wished to go, unless he happened
to be hunting, in which case his direction would be influenced by
the sign and scent of game."

"Doubtless he was hunting here," said Von Horst.

"If he was hunting," said Muviro, "he would have moved in a
straight line until he caught the scent spoor of game or came to a
well-beaten game trail."

"And then what would he do?" asked Gridley.

"He might wait above the trail," replied Muviro, "or he might
follow it. In a new country like this, I think he would follow it,
for he has always been interested in exploring every new country he
entered."

"Then let us push straight into the forest in this same
direction until we strike a game trail," said Gridley.

Muviro and three of his warriors went ahead, cutting brush where
it was necessary and blazing the trees at frequent intervals that
they might more easily retrace their steps to the ship. With the
aid of a small pocket compass Gridley directed the line of advance,
which otherwise it would have been difficult to hold accurately
beneath that eternal noonday sun, whose warm rays filtered down
through the foliage of the forest.

"God! What a forest!" exclaimed Von Horst. "To search for a man
here is like the proverbial search for the needle in a
haystack."

"Except," said Gridley, "that one might stand a slight chance of
finding the needle."

"Excellent," said Gridley. "The rifles carry a much heavier
charge and make a louder report than our revolvers."

After warning the others of his intention, he directed one of
the blacks to fire three shots at intervals of a few seconds, for
neither Gridley nor Von Horst was armed with rifles, each of the
officers carrying two .45 caliber Colts. Thereafter, at intervals
of about half an hour, a single shot was fired, but as the
searching party forced its way on into the forest each of its
members became gloomily impressed with the futility of their
search.

Presently the nature of the forest changed. The trees were set
less closely together and the underbrush, while still forming an
almost impenetrable screen, was less dense than it had been
heretofore and here they came upon a wide game trail worn by
countless hoofs and padded feet to a depth of two feet or more
below the surface of the surrounding ground, and here Jason Gridley
blundered.

"We won't bother about blazing the trees as long as we follow
this trail." he said to Muviro, "except at such places as it may
fork or be crossed by other trails."

It was, after all, a quite natural mistake since a few blazed
trees along the trail would not serve any purpose in following it
back when they wished to return.

The going here was easier and as the Waziri warriors swung along
at a brisk pace, the miles dropped quickly behind them and already
had the noonday sun so cast its spell upon them that the element of
time seemed not to enter into their calculations, while the teeming
life about them absorbed the attention of blacks and whites
alike.

Strange monkeys, some of them startlingly manlike in appearance
and of large size, watched them pass. Birds of both gay and somber
plumage scattered protestingly before their advance, and again dim
bulks loomed through the undergrowth and the sound of padded feet
was everywhere.

At times they would pass through a stretch of forest as silent
as the tomb, and then again they seemed to be surrounded by a
bedlam of hideous growls and roars and screams.

"I'd like to see some of those fellows," said Von Horst, after a
particularly savage outburst of sound.

"I am surprised that we haven't," replied Gridley; "but I
imagine that they are a little bit leery of us right now, not alone
on account of our numbers but because of the, to them, strange and
unfamiliar, odors which must surround us. These would naturally
increase the suspicion which must have been aroused by the sound of
our shots."

"Have you noticed," said Von Horst, "that most of the noise
seems to come from behind us; I mean the more savage, growling
sounds. I have heard squeals and noises that sounded like the
trumpeting of elephants to the right and to the left and ahead, but
only an occasional growl or roar seems to come from these
directions and then always at a considerable distance."

"How do you account for it?" asked Gridley.

"I can't account for it," replied Von Horst. "It is as though we
were moving along in the center of a procession with all the savage
carnivores behind us."

"This perpetual noonday sun has its compensations," remarked
Gridley with a laugh, "for at least it insures that we shall not
have to spend the night here."

At that instant the attention of the two men was attracted by an
exclamation from one of the Waziri behind them. "Look, Bwana!
Look!" cried the man, pointing back along the trail. Following the
direction of the Waziri's extended finger, Gridley and Von Horst
saw a huge beast slinking slowly along the trail in their rear.

"God!" exclaimed. Von Horst; "and I thought Dorf was
exaggerating."

"It doesn't seem possible," exclaimed Gridley, "that five
hundred miles below our feet automobiles are dashing through
crowded streets lined by enormous buildings; that there the
telegraph, the telephone and the radio are so commonplace as to
excite no comment; that countless thousands live out their entire
lives without ever having to use a weapon in self-defense, and yet
at the same instant we stand here facing a saber-tooth tiger in
surroundings that may not nave existed upon the outer crust for a
million years."

"Look at them!" exclaimed Von Horst. "If there is one there are
a dozen of them."

"Shall we fire, Bwana?" asked one of the Waziri.

"Not yet," said Gridley. "Close up and be ready. They seem to be
only following us."

Slowly the party fell back, a line of Waziri in the rear facing
the tigers and backing slowly away from them. Muviro dropped back
to Gridley's side.

"For a long time, Bwana," he said, "there has been the spoor of
many elephants in the trail, or spoor that looked like the spoor of
elephants, though it was different. And just now I sighted some of
the beasts ahead. I could not make them out distinctly, but if they
are not elephants they are very much like them."

"We seem to be between the devil and the deep sea," said Von
Horst.

"And there are either elephants or tigers on each side of us,"
said Muviro. "I can hear them moving through the brush."

Perhaps the same thought was in the minds of all these men, that
they might take to the trees, but for some reason no one expressed
it. And so they continued to move slowly along the trail until
suddenly it broke into a large, open area in the forest, where the
ground was scantily covered with brush and there were few trees.
Perhaps a hundred acres were included in the clearing and then the
forest commenced again upon all sides.

And into the clearing, along numerous trails that seemed to
center at this spot, came as strange a procession as the eyes of
these men had ever rested upon. There were great ox-like creatures
with shaggy coats and wide-spreading horns. There were red deer and
sloths of gigantic size. There were mastodon and mammoth, and a
huge, elephantine creature that resembled an elephant and yet did
not seem to be an elephant at all. Its great head was four feet
long and three feet wide. It had a short, powerful trunk and from
its lower jaw mighty tusks curved downward, their points bending
inward toward the body. At the shoulder it stood at least ten feet
above the ground, and in length it must have been fully twenty
feet. But what resemblance it bore to an elephant was lessened by
its small, pig-like ears.

The two white men, momentarily forgetting the tigers behind them
in their amazement at the sight ahead, halted and looked with
wonder upon the huge gathering of creatures within the
clearing.

"Did you ever see anything like it?" exclaimed Gridley.

"No, nor anyone else," replied Von Horst.

"I could catalog a great many of them," said Gridley, "although
practically all are extinct upon the outer crust. But that fellow
there gets me," and he pointed to the elephantine creature with the
downward pointing tusks.

"A Dinotherium of the Miocene," said Von Horst.

Muviro had stopped beside the two whites and was gazing in
wide-eyed astonishment at the scene before him.

"Well," asked Gridley, "what do you make of it, Muviro?"

"I think I understand now, Bwana," replied the black, "and if we
are ever going to escape our one chance is to cross that clearing
as quickly as possible. The great cats are herding these creatures
here and presently there will be such a killing as the eyes of man
have never before seen. If we are not killed by the cats, we shall
be trampled to death by these beasts in their efforts to escape or
to fight the tigers."

"I believe you are right, Muviro," said Gridley.

"There is an opening just ahead of us," said Von Horst.

Gridley called the men around him and pointed out across the
clearing to the forest upon the opposite side. "Apparently our only
chance now," he said, "is to cross before the cats close in on
these beasts. We have already come into the clearing too far to try
to take refuge in the trees on this side for the saber-tooths are
too close. Stick close together and fire at nothing unless we are
charged."

"Look!" exclaimed Van Horst. "The tigers are entering the
clearing from all sides. They have surrounded their quarry."

"There is still the one opening ahead of us, Bwana," said
Muviro.

Already the little party was moving slowly across the clearing,
which was covered with nervous beasts moving irritably to and fro,
their whole demeanor marked by nervous apprehension. Prior to the
advent of the tigers the animals had been moving quietly about,
some of them grazing on the short grass of the clearing or upon the
leaves and twigs of the scattered trees growing in it; but with the
appearance of the first of the carnivores their attitude changed. A
huge, bull mastodon raised his trunk and trumpeted shrilly, and
instantly every herbivore was on the alert. And as eyes or nostrils
detected the presence of the great cats, or the beasts became
excited by the excitement of their fellows, each added his voice to
the pandemonium that now reigned. To the squealing, trumpeting and
bellowing of the quarry were added the hideous growls and roars of
the carnivores.

"Look at those cats," cried Van Horst. "There must be hundreds
of them." Nor was his estimate an exaggeration for from all sides
of the clearing, with the exception of a single point opposite
them, the cats were emerging from the forest and starting to circle
the herd. That they did not rush it immediately evidenced their
respect for the huge beasts they had corralled, the majority of
which they would not have dared to attack except in superior
numbers.

Now a mammoth, a giant bull with tail raised and ears upcocked,
curled his trunk above his head and charged. But a score of the
great cats, growling hideously, sprang to meet him, and the bull,
losing his nerve, wheeled in a wide circle and returned to the
herd. Had he gone through that menacing line of fangs and talons,
as with his great size and weight and strength he might have done,
he would have opened a hole through which a stampede of the other
animals would have carried the bulk of them to safety.

The frightened herbivores, their attention centered upon the
menacing tigers, paid little attention to the insignificant
man-things passing among them. But there were some exceptions. A
thag, bellowing and pawing the earth directly in their line of
march, terrified by the odor of the carnivores and aroused and
angered by the excited trumpeting and squealing of the creatures
about him, seeking to vent his displeasure upon something, lowered
his head and charged them. A Waziri warrior raised his rifle to his
shoulder and fired, and a prehistoric Bos Primigenus crashed to the
impact of a modern bullet.

As the report of the rifle sounded above the other noises of the
clearing, the latter were momentarily stilled, and the full
attention of hunters and hunted was focused upon the little band of
men, so puny and insignificant in the presence of the mighty beasts
of another day. A dinotherium, his little ears up-cocked, his tail
stiffly erect, walked slowly toward them. Almost immediately others
followed his example until it seemed that the whole aggregation was
converging upon them. The forest was yet a hundred yards away as
Jason Gridley realized the seriousness of the emergency that now
confronted them.

"We shall have to run for it," he said. "Give them a volley, and
then beat it for the trees. If they charge, it will have to be
every man for himself."

The Waziri wheeled and faced the slowly advancing herd and then,
at Gridley's command, they fired. The thunderous volley had its
effect upon the advancing beasts. They hesitated and then turned
and retreated, but behind them were the carnivores. And once again
they swung back in the direction of the men, who were now moving
rapidly toward the forest.

"Here they come!" cried Van Horst. And a backward glance
revealed the fact that the entire herd, goaded to terror by the
tigers behind them, had broken into a mad stampede. Whether or not
it was a direct charge upon the little party of men is open to
question, but the fact that they lay in its path was sufficient to
seal their doom if they were unable to reach the safety of the
forest ahead of the charging quadrupeds.

"Give them another volley!" cried Gridley. And again the Waziri
turned and fired. A dinotherium, a thag and two mammoths stumbled
and fell to the ground, but the remainder of the herd did not
pause. Leaping over the carcasses of their fallen comrades they
thundered down upon the fleeing men.

It was now, in truth, every man for himself, and so close
pressed were they that even the brave Waziri threw away their
rifles as useless encumbrances to flight.

Several of the red deer, swifter in flight than the other
members of the herd, had taken the lead, and, stampeding through
the party, scattered them to left and right.

Gridley and Von Horst were attempting to cover the retreat of
the Waziri and check the charge of the stampeding animals with
their revolvers. They succeeded in turning a few of the leaders,
but presently a great, red stag passed between them, forcing them
to jump quickly apart to escape his heavy antlers, and behind him
swept a nightmare of terrified beasts forcing them still further
apart.

Not far from Gridley grew a single, giant tree, a short distance
from the edge of the clearing, and finding himself alone and cut
off from further retreat, the American turned and ran for it, while
Von Horst was forced to bolt for the jungle which was now almost
within reach.

Bowled over by a huge sloth, Gridley scrambled to his feet, and,
passing in front of a fleeing mastodon, reached the tree just as
the main body of the stampeding herd closed about it. Its great
bole gave him momentary protection and an instant later he had
scrambled among its branches.

Instantly his first thought was for his fellows, but where they
had been a moment before was now only a solid mass of leaping,
plunging, terrified beasts. No sign of a human being was anywhere
to be seen and Gridley knew that no living thing could have
survived the trampling of those incalculable tons of terrified
flesh.

Some of them, he knew, must have reached the forest, but he
doubted that all had come through in safety and he feared
particularly for Von Horst, who had been some little distance in
rear of the Waziri.

The eyes of the American swept back over the clearing to observe
such as scene as probably in all the history of the world had never
before been vouchsafed to the eyes of man. Literally thousands of
creatures, large and small, were following their leaders in a break
for life and liberty, while upon their flanks and at their rear
hundreds of savage saber-tooth tigers leaped upon them, dragging
down the weaker, battling with the stronger, leaving the maimed and
crippled behind that they might charge into the herd again and drag
down others.

The mad rush of the leaders across the clearing had been checked
as they entered the forest, and now those in the rear were forced
to move more slowly, but in their terror they sought to clamber
over the backs of those ahead. Red deer leaped upon the backs of
mastodons and fled across the heaving bodies beneath them, as a
mountain goat might leap from rock to rock. Mammoths raised their
huge bulks upon lesser animals and crushed them to the ground.
Tusks and horns were red with gore as the maddened beasts battled
for their lives. The scene was sickening in its horror, and yet
fascinating in its primitive strength and savagery—and
everywhere were the great, savage cats.

Slowly they were cutting into the herd from both sides in an
effort to encircle a portion of it and at last they were
successful, though within the circle there remained but a few
scattered beasts that were still unmaimed or uncrippled. And then
the great tigers turned upon these, closing in and drawing tighter
their hideous band of savage fury.

In twos and threes and scores they leaped upon the remaining
beasts and dragged them down until the sole creature remaining
alive within their circle was a gigantic bull mammoth. His shaggy
coat was splashed with blood and his tusks were red with gore.
Trumpeting he stood at bay, a magnificent picture of primordial
power, of sagacity, of courage.

The heart of the American went out to that lone warrior
trumpeting his challenge to overwhelming odds in the face of
certain doom.

By hundreds the carnivores were closing in upon the great bull;
yet it was evident that even though they outnumbered him so
overwhelmingly, they still held him in vast respect. Growling and
snarling, a few of them slunk in stealthy circles about him, and as
he wheeled about with them, three of them charged him from the
rear. With a swiftness that matched their own, the pachyderm
wheeled to meet them. Two of them he caught upon his tusks and
tossed them high into the air, and at the same instant a score of
others rushed him from each side and from the rear and fastened
themselves to his back and flanks. Down he went as though struck by
lightning, squatting quickly upon his haunches and rolling over
backward, crushing a dozen tigers before they could escape.

Gridley could scarce repress a cheer as the great fellow
staggered to his feet and threw himself again upon the opposite
side to the accompaniment of hideous screams of pain and anger from
the tigers he pinioned beneath him. But now he was gushing blood
from a hundred wounds, and other scores of the savage carnivores
were charging him.

Though he put up a magnificent battle the end was inevitable and
at last they dragged him down, tearing him to pieces while he yet
struggled to rise again and battle with them.

And then commenced the aftermath as the savage beasts fought
among themselves for possession of their prey. For even though
there was flesh to more than surfeit them all, in their greed,
jealousy and ferocity, they must still battle one with another.

That they had paid heavily for their meat was evident by the
carcasses of the tigers strewn about the clearing and as the
survivors slowly settled down to feed, there came the jackals, the
hyaenodons and the wild dogs to feast upon their leavings.

AS the great cat slunk toward him, Tarzan of the
Apes realized that at last he faced inevitable death, yet even in
that last moment of life the emotion which dominated him was one of
admiration for the magnificent beast drawing angrily toward
him.

Tarzan of the Apes would have preferred to die fighting, if he
must die; yet he felt a certain thrill as he contemplated the
magnificence of the great beast that Fate had chosen to terminate
his earthly career. He felt no fear, but a certain sense of
anticipation of what would follow after death. The Lord of the
Jungle subscribed to no creed. Tarzan of the Apes was not a church
man; yet like the majority of those who have always lived close to
nature he was, in a sense, intensely religious. His intimate
knowledge of the stupendous forces of nature, of her wonders and
her miracles had impressed him with the fact that their ultimate
origin lay far beyond the conception of the finite mind of man, and
thus incalculably remote from the farthest bounds of science. When
he thought of God he liked to think of Him primitively, as a
personal God. And while he realized that he knew nothing of such
matters, he liked to believe that after death he would live
again.

Many thoughts passed quickly through his mind as the saber-tooth
advanced upon him. He was watching the long, glistening fangs that
so soon were to be buried in his flesh when his attention was
attracted by a sound among the trees about him. That the great cat
had heard too was evident, for it stopped in its tracks and gazed
up into the foliage of the trees above. And then Tarzan heard a
rustling in the branches directly overhead, and looking up he saw
what appeared to be a gorilla glaring down upon him.

Two more savage faces showed through the foliage above him and
then in other trees about he caught glimpses of similar shaggy
forms and fierce faces. He saw that they were like gorillas, and
yet unlike them; that in some respects they were more man than
gorilla, and in others more gorilla than man. He caught glimpses of
great clubs wielded by hairy hands, and when his eyes returned to
the saber-tooth he saw that the great beast had hesitated in its
advance and was snarling and growling angrily as its eyes roved
upward and around at the savage creatures glaring down upon it.

It was only for a moment that the cat paused in its advance upon
the ape-man. Snarling angrily, it moved forward again and as it did
so, one of the creatures in the tree above Tarzan reached down,
and, seizing the rope that held him dangling in mid-air, drew him
swiftly upward. Then several things occurred
simultaneously—the saber-tooth leaped to retrieve its prey
and a dozen heavy cudgels hurtled through the air from the
surrounding trees, striking the great cat heavily upon the head and
body with the result that the talons that must otherwise have
inevitably been imbedded in the flesh of the ape-man grazed
harmlessly by him, and an instant later he was drawn well up among
the branches of the tree, where he was seized by three hairy brutes
whose attitude suggested that he might have been as well off had he
been left to the tender mercies of the saber-tooth.

Two of them, one on either side, seized an arm and the third
grasped him by the throat with one hand while he held his cudgel
poised above his head in the other. And then from the lips of the
creature facing him came a sound that fell as startlingly upon the
ears of the ape-man as had the first unexpected roar of the
saber-tooth, but with far different effect.

"Ka-goda!" said the creature facing Tarzan.

In the language of the apes of his own jungle Ka-goda may be
roughly interpreted according to its inflection as a command to
surrender, or as an interrogation, "do you surrender?" or as a
declaration of surrender.

This word, coming from the lips of a hairy gorilla man of the
inner world, suggested possibilities of the most startling nature.
For years Tarzan had considered the language of the great apes as
the primitive root language of created things. The great apes, the
lesser apes, the gorillas, the baboons and the monkeys utilized
this with various degrees of refinement and many of its words were
understood by jungle animals of other species and by many of the
birds; but, perhaps, after the fashion that our domestic animals
have learned many of the words in our vocabulary, with this
difference that the language of the great apes has doubtless
persisted unchanged for countless ages.

That these gorilla men of the inner world used even one word of
this language suggested one of two possibilities—either they
held an origin in common with the creatures of the outer crust, or
else that the laws of evolution and progress were so constant that
this was the only form of primitive language that could have been
possible to any creatures emerging from the lower orders toward the
estate of man. But the suggestion that impressed Tarzan most
vividly was that this single word, uttered by the creature grasping
him by the throat, postulated familiarity on the part of his fierce
captors with the entire ape language that he had used since
boyhood.

"Ka-goda?" inquired the bull.

"Ka-goda," said Tarzan of the Apes.

The brute, facing Tarzan, half lowered his cudgel as though he
were surprised to hear the prisoner answer in his own tongue. "Who
are you?" he demanded in the language of the great apes.

"I am Tarzan—mighty hunter, mighty fighter," replied the
ape-man.

"What are you doing in M'wa-lot's country?" demanded the gorilla
man.

"I come as a friend," replied Tarzan. "I have no quarrel with
your people."

The fellow had lowered his club now, and from other trees had
come a score more of the shaggy creatures until the surrounding
limbs sagged beneath their weight.

"How did you learn the language of the Sagoths?" demanded the
bull. "We have captured gilaks in the past, but you are the first
one who ever spoke or understood our language."

"It is the language of my people," replied Tarzan. "As a little
balu, I learned it from Kala and other apes of the tribe of
Kerchak."

"We never heard of the tribe of Kerchak," said the bull.

"Perhaps he is not telling the truth," said another. "Let us
kill him; he is only a gilak."

"No," said a third. "Take him back to M'wa-lot that the whole
tribe of M'wa-lot may join in the killing."

"That is good," said another. "Take him back to the tribe, and
while we are killing him we shall dance."

The language of the great apes is not like our language. It
sounds to man like growling and barking and grunting, punctuated at
times by shrill screams, and it is practically untranslatable to
any tongue known to man; yet it carried to Tarzan and the Sagoths
the sense that we have given it. It is a means of communicating
thought and there its similarity to the languages of men
ceases.

Having decided upon the disposition of their prisoner, the
Sagoths now turned their attention to the saber-tooth, who had
returned to his kill, across the body of which he was lying. He was
not feeding, but was gazing angrily up into the trees at his
tormentors.

While three of the gorilla men secured Tarzan's wrists behind
his back with a length of buckskin thong, the others renewed their
attention to the tiger. Three or four of them would cast well-aimed
cudgels at his face at intervals so nicely timed that the great
beast could do nothing but fend off the missiles as they sped
toward him. And while he was thus occupied, the other Sagoths, who
had already cast their clubs, sprang to the ground and retrieved
them with an agility and celerity that would have done credit to
the tiniest monkey of the jungle. The risk that they took bespoke
great self-confidence and high courage since often they were
compelled to snatch their cudgels from almost beneath the claws of
the saber-tooth.

Battered and bruised, the great cat gave back inch by inch
until, unable to stand the fusillade longer, it suddenly turned
tail and bounded into the underbrush, where for some time the sound
of its crashing retreat could be distinctly heard. And with the
departure of the carnivore, the gorilla men leaped to the ground
and fell upon the carcass of the thag. With heavy fangs they tore
its flesh, oftentimes fighting among themselves like wild beasts
for some particularly choice morsel; but unlike many of the lower
orders of man upon similar occasions they did not gorge themselves,
and having satisfied their hunger they left what remained to the
jackals and wild dogs that had already gathered.

Tarzan of the Apes, silent spectator of this savage scene, had
an opportunity during the feast to examine his captors more
closely. He saw that they were rather lighter in build than the
gorillas he had seen in his own native jungle, but even though they
were not as heavy as Bolgani, they were yet mighty creatures. Their
arms and legs were of more human conformation and proportion than
those of a gorilla, but the shaggy brown hair covering their entire
body increased their beast-like appearance while their faces were
even more brutal than that of Bolgani himself, except that the
development of the skull denoted a brain capacity seemingly as
great as that of man.

They were entirely naked, nor was there among them any
suggestion of ornamentation, while their only weapons were clubs.
These, however, showed indications of having been shaped by some
sharp instrument as though an effort had been made to insure a firm
grip and a well-balanced weapon.

Their feeding completed, the Sagoths turned back along the game
trail in the same direction that Tarzan had been going when he had
sprung the trigger of the snare. But before departing several of
them reset the noose, covered it carefully with earth and leaves
and set the trigger that it might be sprung by the first passing
animal.

So sure were all their movements and so deft their fingers,
Tarzan realized that though these creatures looked like beasts,
they had long since entered the estate of man. Perhaps they were
still low in the scale of evolution, but unquestionably they were
men with the brains of men and the faces and skins of gorillas.

As the Sagoths moved along the jungle trail they walked erect as
men walk, but in other ways they reminded Tarzan of the great apes
who were his own people, for they were given neither to laughter
nor song and their taciturnity suggested the speechlessness of the
alali. That certain of their sense faculties were more highly
developed than in man was evidenced by the greater dependence they
placed upon their ears and noses than upon their eyes in their
unremitting vigil against surprise by an enemy.

While by human standards they might have been judged ugly and
even hideous, they did not so impress Tarzan of the Apes, who
recognized in them a certain primitive majesty of bearing and mien
such as might well have been expected of pioneers upon the
frontiers of humanity.

It is sometimes the custom of theorists to picture our
primordial progenitors as timid, fearful creatures, fleeing from
the womb to the grave in constant terror of the countless, savage
creatures that beset their entire existence. But as it does not
seem reasonable that a creature so poorly equipped for offense and
defense could have survived without courage, it seems far more
consistent to assume that with the dawning of reason came a certain
superiority complex—a vast and at first stupid
egotism—that knew caution, perhaps, but not fear; nor is any
other theory tenable unless we are to suppose that from the loin of
a rabbit-hearted creature sprang men who hunted the bison, the
mammoth and the cave bear with crude spears tipped with stone.

The Sagoths of Pellucidar may have been analogous in the scale
of evolution to the Neanderthal men of the outer crust, or they
may, indeed, have been even a step lower; yet in their bearing
there was nothing to suggest to Tarzan that they had reached this
stage in evolution through the expedience of flight. Their bearing
as they trod the jungle trail bespoke assurance and even
truculence, as though they were indeed the lords of creation,
fearing nothing. Perhaps Tarzan understood their attitude better
than another might have since it had been his own always in the
jungle—unquestioning fearlessness—with which a certain
intelligent caution was not inconsistent.

They had come but a short distance from the scene of Tarzan's
capture when the Sagoths stopped beside a hollow log, the skeleton
of a great tree that had fallen beside the trail. One of the
creatures tapped upon the log with his club—one, two; one,
two; one, two, three. And then, after a moment's pause, he repeated
the same tapping. Three times the signal boomed through the jungle
and then the signaler paused, listening, while others stooped and
put their ears against the ground.

Faintly through the air, more plainly through the ground, came
an answering signal—one, two; one, two; one, two, three.

The creatures seemed satisfied and, climbing into the
surrounding trees, disposed themselves comfortably as though
settling down to a wait. Two of them carried Tarzan easily aloft
with them, as with his hands bound behind his back he could not
climb unassisted.

Since they had started on the march Tarzan had not spoken, but
now he turned to one of the Sagoths near him. "Remove the bonds
from my wrists," he said. "I am not an enemy."

"Tar-gash," said he whom Tarzan had addressed, "the gilak wants
his bonds removed."

Tar-gash, a large bull with noticeably long, white canine fangs,
turned his savage eyes upon the ape-man. For a long time he glared
unblinkingly at the prisoner and it seemed to Tarzan that the mind
of the half-brute was struggling with a new idea. Presently he
turned to the Sagoth who had repeated Tarzan's request. "Take them
off," he said.

"Why?" demanded another of the bulls. The tone was
challenging.

"Because I, Tar-gash, say 'take them off,'" growled the
other.

"You are not M'wa-lot. He is king. If M'wa-lot says take them
off, we will take them off."

To-yad swung to Tarzan's side. "M'wa-lot will come soon," he
said. "If M'wa-lot says take them off, we shall take them off. We
do not take orders from Tar-gash."

Like a panther, quickly, silently, Tar-gash sprang straight for
the throat of To-yad. There was no warning, not even an instant of
hesitation. In this Tarzan saw that Tar-gash differed from the
great apes with whom the Lord of the Jungle had been familiar upon
the outer crust, for among them two bulls ordinarily must needs
have gone through a long preliminary of stiff-legged strutting and
grumbled invective before either one launched himself upon the
other in deadly combat. But the mind of Tar-gash had functioned
with man-like celerity, so much so that decision and action had
appeared to be almost simultaneous.

The impact of the heavy body of Tar-gash toppled To-yad from the
branch upon which he had been standing, but so naturally arboreal
were the two great creatures that even as they fell they reached
out and seized the same branch and still fighting, each with his
free hand and his heavy fangs, they hung there a second breaking
their fall, and then dropped to the ground. They fought almost
silently except for low growls, Tar-gash seeking the jugular of
To-yad with those sharp, white fangs that had given him his name.
To-yad, his every faculty concentrated upon defense, kept the
grinning jaws from his flesh and suddenly twisting quickly around,
tore loose from the powerful fingers of his opponent and sought
safety in flight. But like a football player, Tar-gash launched
himself through the air; his long hairy arms encircled the legs of
the fleeing To-yad, bringing him heavily to the ground, and an
instant later the powerful aggressor was on the back of his
opponent and To-yad's jugular was at the mercy of his foe, but the
great jaws of Tar-gash did not close.

"Ka-goda?" he inquired.

"Ka-goda," growled To-yad, and instantly Tar-gash arose from the
body of the other bull.

With the agility of a monkey the victor leaped back into the
branches of the tree. "Remove the bonds from the wrists of the
gilak," he said, and at the same time he glared ferociously about
him to see if there was another so mutinously minded as To-yad, but
none spoke and none objected as one of the Sagoths who had dragged
Tarzan up into the tree untied the bonds that secured his
wrists.

"If he tries to run away from us," said Tar-gash, "kill
him."

When his bonds were removed Tarzan expected that the Sagoths
would take his knife away from him. He had lost his spear and bow
and most of his arrows at the instant that the snare had snapped
him from the ground, but though they had lain in plain view in the
trail beneath the snare the Sagoths had paid no attention to them,
nor did they now pay any attention to his knife. He was sure they
must have seen it and he could not understand their lack of concern
regarding it, unless they were ignorant of its purpose or held him
in such contempt that they did not consider it worth the effort to
disarm him.

Presently To-yad sneaked back into the tree, but he huddled
sullenly by himself, apart from the others.

Faintly, from a distance, Tarzan heard something approaching. He
heard it just a moment before the Sagoths heard it.

"They come!" announced Tar-gash, "M'wa-lot comes," said another,
glancing at To-yad. Now Tarzan knew why the primitive drum had been
sounded, but he wondered why they were gathering.

At last they arrived, nor was it difficult for Tarzan to
recognize M'wa-lot, the king among the others. A great bull walked
in front—a bull with so much gray among the hairs on his face
that the latter had a slightly bluish complexion, and instantly the
ape-man saw how the king had come by his name.

As soon as the Sagoths with Tarzan were convinced of the
identity of the approaching party, they descended from the trees to
the ground and when M'wa-lot had approached within twenty paces of
them, he halted. "I am M'wa-lot," he announced. "With me are the
people of my tribe."

"I am Tar-gash," replied the bull who seemed to be in charge of
the other party. "With me are other bulls of the tribe of
M'wa-lot."

This precautionary preliminary over, M'wa-lot advanced, followed
by the bulls, the shes and the balus of his tribe.

"What is that?" demanded M'wa-lot, as his fierce eyes espied
Tarzan.

"It is a gilak that we found caught in our snare," replied
Tar-gash.

"That is the feast that you called us to?" demanded M'wa-lot,
angrily. "You should have brought it to the tribe. It can
walk."

"This is not the food of which the drum spoke," replied
Tar-gash. "Nearby is the body of a thag that was killed by a tarag
close by the snare in which this gilak was caught."

"Ugh!" grunted M'wa-lot. "We can eat the gilak later."

"We can have a dance," suggested one of Tarzan's captors. "We
have eaten and slept many times since we have danced,
M'wa-lot."

As the Sagoths, guided by Tar-gash, proceeded along the trail
towards the body of the thag, the females with balus growled
savagely when one of the little ones chanced to come near to
Tarzan. The bulls eyed him suspiciously and all seemed uneasy
because of his presence. In these and in other ways the Sagoths
were reminiscent of the apes of the tribe of Kerchak and to such an
extent was this true that Tarzan, although a prisoner among them,
felt strangely at home in this new environment.

A short distance ahead of the ape-man walked M'wa-lot, king of
the tribe, and at M'wa-lot's elbow was To-yad. The two spoke in low
tones and from the frequent glances they cast at Tar-gash, who
walked ahead of them, it was evident that he was the subject of
their conversation, the effect of which upon M'wa-lot seemed to be
highly disturbing.

Tarzan could see that the shaggy chieftain was working himself
into a frenzy of rage, the inciting cause of which was evidently
the information that To-yad was imparting to him. The latter seemed
to be attempting to goad him to greater fury, a fact which seemed
to be now apparent to every member of the tribe with the exception
of Tar-gash, who was walking in the lead, ahead of M'wa-lot and
To-yad, for practically every other eye was turned upon the king,
whose evident excitement had imparted a certain fierce restlessness
to the other members of his party. But it was not until they had
come within sight of the body of the thag that the storm broke and
then, without warning, M'wa-lot swung his heavy club and leaped
forward toward Tar-gash with the very evident intention of braining
him from behind.

If the life of the ape-man in his constant battle for survival
had taught him to act quickly, it also had taught him to think
quickly. He knew that in all this savage company he had no friends,
but he also knew that Tar-gash, from very stubbornness and to spite
To-yad, might alone be expected to befriend him and now it appeared
that Tar-gash himself might need a friend, for it was evident that
no hand was to be raised in defense of him nor any voice in
warning. And so Tarzan of the Apes, prompted both by considerations
of self-interest and fair play, took matters into his own hands
with such suddenness that he had already acted before any hand
could be raised to stop him.

"Kreeg-ah, Tar-gash!" he cried, and at the same instant he
sprang quickly forward, brushing To-yad aside with a single sweep
of a giant arm that sent the Sagoth headlong into the underbrush
bordering the trail.

At the warning cry of "Kreeg-ah," which in the language of the
great apes is synonymous to beware, Tar-gash wheeled about to see
the infuriated M'wa-lot with upraised club almost upon him and then
he saw something else which made his savage eyes widen in surprise.
The strange gilak, whom he had taken prisoner, had leaped close to
M'wa-lot from behind. A smooth, bronzed arm slipped quickly about
the king's neck and tightened. The gilak turned and stooped and
surging forward with the king across his hip threw the great, hairy
bull completely over his head and sent him sprawling at the feet of
his astonished warriors. Then the gilak leaped to Tar-gash's side
and, wheeling, faced the tribe with Tar-gash.

Instantly a score of clubs were raised against the two.

"Shall we remain and fight, Tar-gash?" demanded the ape-man.

"They will kill us," said Tar-gash. "If you were not a gilak, we
might escape through the trees, but as you cannot escape we shall
have to remain and fight."

"Lead the way," said Tarzan. "There is no Sagoth trail that
Tarzan cannot follow."

"Come then," said Tar-gash, and as he spoke he hurled his club
into the faces of the oncoming warriors and, turning, fled along
the trail. A dozen mighty bounds he took and then leaped to the
branch of an overhanging tree, and close behind him came the
hairless gilak.

M'wa-lot's hairy warrior bulls pursued the two for a short
distance and then gave up the chase as Tarzan was confident that
they would, since among his own people it had usually been
considered sufficient to run a recalcitrant bull out of the tribe
and, unless he insisted upon returning, no particular effort was
made to molest him.

As soon as it became evident that pursuit had been abandoned the
Sagoth halted among the branches of a huge tree.

"I am Tar-gash," he said, as Tarzan stopped near him.

"I am Tarzan," replied the ape-man.

"Why did you warn me?" asked Tar-gash.

"I told you that I did not come among you as an enemy," replied
Tarzan, "and when I saw that To-yad had succeeded in urging
M'wa-lot to kill you, I warned you because it was you that kept the
bulls from killing me when I was captured."

"What were you doing in the country of the Sagoths?" asked
Tar-gash.

"I was hunting," replied Tarzan.

"Where do you want to go now?" asked the Sagoth.

"I shall return to my people," replied Tarzan.

"Where are they?"

Tarzan of the Apes hesitated. He looked upward toward the sun,
whose rays were filtering down through the foliage of the forest.
He looked about him—everywhere was foliage. There was nothing
in the foliage nor upon the boles or branches of the trees to
indicate direction. Tarzan of the Apes was lost!

JASON GRIDLEY, looking down from the branches of
the tree in which he had found sanctuary, was held by a certain
horrible fascination as he watched the feast of the great cats.

The scene that he had just witnessed—this stupendous
spectacle of savagery—suggested to him something of what life
upon the outer crust must have been at the dawn of humanity.

The suggestion was borne in upon him that perhaps this scene
which he had witnessed might illustrate an important cause of the
extinction of all of these animals upon the outer crust.

The action of the great saber-tooth tigers of Pellucidar in
rounding up the other beasts of the forest and driving them to this
clearing for slaughter evidenced a development of intelligence far
beyond that attained by the carnivores of the outer world of the
present day, such concerted action by any great number for the
common good being unknown.

Gridley saw the vast number of animals that had been slaughtered
and most of them uselessly, since there was more flesh there than
the surviving tigers could consume before it reached a stage of
putrefaction that would render it unpalatable even to one of the
great cats. And this fact suggested the conviction that the cunning
of the tigers had reached a plane where it might reasonably be
expected to react upon themselves and eventually cause their
extinction, for in their savage fury and lust for flesh they had
slaughtered indiscriminately males and females, young and old. If
this slaughter went on unchecked for ages, the natural prey of the
tigers must become extinct and then, goaded by starvation, they
would fall upon one another.

The last stage of the ascendancy of the great cats upon the
outer crust must have been short and terrible and so eventually it
would prove here in Pellucidar.

And just as the great cats may have reached a point where their
mental development had spelled their own doom, so in the preceding
era the gigantic, carnivorous dinosaurs of the Jurassic may
similarly have caused the extinction of their own contemporaries
and then of themselves. Nor did Jason Gridley find it difficult to
apply the same line of reasoning to the evolution of man upon the
outer crust and to his own possible extinction in the not far
remote future. In fact, he recalled quite definitely that
statisticians had shown that within two hundred years or less the
human race would have so greatly increased and the natural
resources of the outer world would have been so depleted that the
last generation must either starve to death or turn to cannibalism
to prolong its hateful existence for another short period.

Perhaps, thought Gridley, in nature's laboratory each type that
had at some era dominated all others represented an experiment in
the eternal search for perfection. The invertebrate had given way
to fishes, the fishes to the reptiles, the reptiles to the birds
and mammals, and these, in turn, had been forced to bow to the
greater intelligence of man.

What would be next? Gridley was sure that there would be
something after man, who is unquestionably the Creator's greatest
blunder, combining as he does all the vices of preceding types from
invertebrates to mammals, while possessing few of their
virtues.

As such thoughts were forced upon his mind by the scene below
him they were accompanied by others of more immediate importance,
first of which was concern for his fellows.

Nowhere about the clearing did he see any sign of a human being
alive or dead. He called aloud several times but received no reply,
though he realized that it was possible that above the roaring and
the growling of the feeding beasts his voice might not carry to any
great distance. He began to have hopes that his companions had
escaped, but he was still greatly worried over the fate of Von
Horst.

The subject of second consideration was that of his own escape
and return to the O-220. He had it in his mind that at nightfall
the beasts might retire and unconsciously he glanced upward at the
sun to note the time, when the realization came to him that there
would never be any night, that forever throughout all eternity it
would be noon here. And then he began to wonder how long he had
been gone from the ship, but when he glanced at his watch he
realized that that meant nothing. The hour hand might have made an
entire circle since he had last looked at it, for in the excitement
of all that had transpired since they had left the O-220 how might
the mind of man, unaided, compute time?

But he knew that eventually the beasts must get their fill and
leave. After them, however, there would be the hyaenodons and the
jackals with their fierce cousins, the wild dogs. As he watched
these, sitting at a respectful distance from the tigers or slinking
hungrily in the background, he realized that they might easily
prove as much of a bar to his escape as the saber-tooth tigers
themselves.

The hyaenodons especially were most discouraging to contemplate.
Their bodies were as large as that of a full grown mastiff. They
walked upon short, powerful legs and their broad jaws were massive
and strong. Dark, shaggy hair covered their backs and sides,
turning to white upon their breasts and bellies.

Gnawing hunger assailed Jason Gridley and also an overpowering
desire to sleep, convincing him that he must have been many hours
away from the O-220, and yet the beasts beneath him continued to
feed.

A dead thag lay at the foot of the tree in which the American
kept his lonely vigil. So far it had not been fed upon and the
nearest tiger was fifty yards away. Gridley was hungry, so hungry
that he eyed the thag covetously. He glanced about him, measuring
the distance from the tree to the nearest tiger and trying to
compute the length of time that it would take him to clamber back
to safety should he descend to the ground. He had seen the tigers
in action and he knew how swiftly they could cover ground and that
one of them could leap almost as high as the branch upon which he
sat.

Altogether the chance of success seemed slight for the plan he
had in mind in the event that the nearest tiger took exception to
it. But great though the danger was, hunger won. Gridley drew his
hunting knife and lowered himself gently to the ground, keeping an
alert eye upon the nearest tiger. Quickly he sliced several long
strips of flesh from the thag's hind quarter.

The tarag feeding fifty yards away looked up. Jason sliced
another strip, returned his knife to its sheath and climbed quickly
back to safety. The tarag lowered its head upon its kill and closed
its eyes.

The American gathered dead twigs and small branches that still
clung to the living tree and with them he built a small fire in a
great crotch.

Here he cooked some of the meat of the thag; the edges were
charred, the inside was raw, but Jason Gridley could have sworn
that never before in his life had he tasted such delicious
food.

How long his culinary activities employed him, he did not know,
but when he glanced down again at the clearing he saw that most of
the tigers had quitted their kills and were moving leisurely toward
the forest, their distended bellies proclaiming how well they had
surfeited themselves. And as the tigers retired, the hyaenodons,
the wild dogs and the jackals closed in to the feast.

The hyaenodons kept the others away and Gridley saw another long
wait ahead of him; nor was he mistaken. And when the hyaenodons had
had their fill and gone, the wild dogs came and kept the jackals
away.

In the meantime Gridley had fashioned a rude platform among the
branches of the tree, and here he had slept, awakening refreshed
but assailed by a thirst that was almost overpowering.

The wild dogs were leaving now and Gridley determined to wait no
longer. Already the odor of decaying flesh was warning him of worse
to come and there was the fear too that the tigers might return to
their kills.

Descending from the tree he skirted the clearing, keeping close
to the forest and searching for the trail by which his party had
entered the clearing. The wild dogs, slinking away, turned to growl
at him, baring menacing fangs. But knowing how well their bellies
were filled, he entertained little fear of them, while for the
jackals he harbored that contempt which is common among all
creatures.

Gridley was dismayed to note that many trails entered the
clearing, nor could he recognize any distinguishing mark that might
suggest the one by which he had come. Whatever footprints his party
had left had been entirely obliterated by the pads of the
carnivores.

He tried to reconstruct his passage across the clearing to the
tree in which he had found safety and by this means he hit upon a
trail to follow, although he had no assurance that it was the right
trail. The baffling noonday sun shining down upon him seemed to
taunt him with his helplessness.

As he proceeded alone down the lonely trail, realizing that at
any instant he might come face to face with some terrible beast of
a long dead past, Jason Gridley wondered how the ape-like
progenitors of man had survived to transmit any of their
characteristics however unpleasant to posterity. That he could live
to reach the O-220 he much doubted. The idea that he might live to
take a mate and raise a family was preposterous.

While the general aspect of the forest through which he was
passing seemed familiar, he realized that this might be true no
matter what trail he was upon and now he reproached himself for not
having had the trees along the trail blazed. What a stupid ass he
had been, he thought, but his regrets were not so much for himself
as for the others, whose safety had been in his hands.

Never in his life had Jason Gridley felt more futile or
helpless. To trudge ceaselessly along that endless trail, having
not the slightest idea whether it led toward the O-220 or in the
opposite direction, was depressing, even maddening, yet there was
naught else to do. And always that damned noonday sun staring
unblinkingly down upon him—the cruel sun that could see his
ship, but would not lead him to it.

His thirst was annoying, but not yet overpowering, when he came
to a small stream that was crossed by the trail. Here he drank and
rested for a while, built a small fire, cooked some more of his
thag meat, drank again and took up his weary march—but much
refreshed.

Aboard the O-220, as the hours passed and hope waned, the spirit
of the remaining officers and members of the crew became
increasingly depressed as apprehension for the safety of their
absent comrades increased gradually until it became eventually an
almost absolute conviction of disaster.

"They have been gone nearly seventy-two hours now," said
Zuppner, who, with Dorf and Hines, spent most of his time in the
upper observation cabin or pacing the narrow walkway along the
ship's back. "I never felt so helpless before in my life," he
continued ruefully, "but I am free to admit that I don't know what
in the devil to do."

"It just goes to show," said Hines, "how much we depend upon
habit and custom and precedence in determining all our actions even
in the face of what we are pleased to call emergency. Here there is
no custom, habit or precedence to guide us."

"We have only our own resources to fall back upon," said Dorf,
"and it is humiliating to realize that we have no resources."

"Not under the conditions that surround us," said Zuppner. "On
the outer crust there would be no question but that we should
cruise around in search of the missing members of our party. We
could make rapid excursions, returning to our base often, but here
in Pellucidar if we should lose sight of our base there is not one
of us who believes he could return the ship to this same anchorage.
And that is a chance we cannot take for the only hope those men
have is that the ship shall be here when they return."

One hundred and fifty feet below them Robert Jones leaned far
out of the galley doorway in an effort to see the noonday sun
shining down upon the ship. His simple, good-natured face wore a
puzzled expression not untinged with awe, and as he drew back into
the galley he extracted a rabbit's foot from his trousers pocket.
Gently he touched each eye with it and then rubbed it vigorously
upon the top of his head at the same time muttering incoherently
below his breath.

From the vantage point of the walkingway far above, Lieutenant
Hines scanned the landscape in all directions through powerful
glasses as he had done for so long that it seemed he knew every
shrub and tree and blade of grass within sight. The wild life of
savage Pellucidar that crossed and re-crossed the clearing had long
since become an old story to these three men. Again and again as
one animal or another had emerged from the distant forest the
glasses had been leveled upon it until it could be identified as
other than man, but now Hines voiced a sudden, nervous
exclamation.

"What is it?" demanded Zuppner. "What do you see?"

"It's a man!" exclaimed Hines. "I'm sure of it."

"Where?" asked Dorf, as he and Zuppner raised their glasses to
their eyes.

"About two points to port."

"I see it." said Dorf.

"It's either Gridley or Von Horst, and whoever it is he is
alone."

"Take ten of the crew at once, Lieutenant," said Zuppner,
turning to Dorf. "See that they are well armed and go out and meet
him. Lose no time," he shouted after the Lieutenant, who had
already started down the climbing shaft.

The two officers upon the top of the O-220 watched Dorf and his
party as it set out to meet the man they could see trudging
steadily toward the ship. They watched them as they approached one
another, though, owing to the contour of the land, which was
rolling, neither Dorf nor the man he had gone to meet caught sight
of one another until they were less than a hundred yards apart. It
was then that the Lieutenant recognized the other as Jason
Gridley.

As they hastened forward and clasped hands it was typical of the
man that Gridley's first words were an inquiry relative to the
missing members of the party.

Dorf shook his head. "You are the only one that has returned,"
he said.

The eager light died out of Gridley's eyes and he suddenly
looked very tired and much older as he greeted the engineers and
mechanics who made up the party that had come to escort him back to
the ship.

"I have been within sight of the ship for a long time," he said.
"How long, I do not know. I broke my watch back in the forest a way
trying to beat a tiger up a tree. Then another one treed me just on
the edge of the clearing in plain view of the ship. It seems as
though I have been there a week. How long have I been gone,
Dorf?"

"About seventy-two hours." Gridley's face brightened. "Then
there is no reason to give up hope yet for the others," he said. "I
honestly thought I had been gone a week. I have slept several
times, I never could tell how long; and then I have gone for what
seemed long periods without sleep because I became very tired and
excessively hungry and thirsty." During the return march to the
ship Jason insisted upon hearing a detailed account of everything
that had happened since his departure, but it was not until they
had joined Zuppner and Hines that he narrated the adventures that
had befallen him and his companions during their ill-fated
expedition.

"The first thing I want," he told them after he had been greeted
by Zuppner and Hines, "is a bath, and then if you will have Bob
cook a couple of cows I'll give you the details of the expedition
while I am eating them. A couple of handfuls of Bos Primigenus and
some wild fruit have only whetted my appetite."

A half hour later, refreshed by a bath, a shave and fresh
clothing, he joined them in the mess room.

As the three men seated themselves, Robert Jones entered from
the galley, his shining face wreathed in smiles.

"Ah'm suttinly glad to see you all, suh," said Robert. "Ah knew
sumpin was a-goin' to happen though—Ah knew we was a-goin' to
have good luck."

"Well, I'm glad to be back, Bob," said Gridley, "and I don't
know of anyone that I am any happier to see than you, for I sure
have missed your cooking. But what made you think that we're going
to have good luck?"

"Ah jes had a brief conversation with mah rabbit's foot. Dat ole
boy he never fails me. We suah be out o' luck if Ah lose him."

"Oh, I've seen lots of rabbits around, Bob," said Zuppner. "We
can get you a bushel of them in no time."

"Yes suh, Cap'n, but you cain't get 'em in de dahk of de moon
where dey ain't no dahk an' dey ain't no moon, an' othe'wise dey
lacks efficiency."

"It's a good thing, then, that we brought you along," said
Jason, "and a mighty good thing for Pellucidar, for she never has
had a really effective rabbit's foot before in all her existence.
But I can see where you're going to need that rabbit's foot pretty
badly yourself in about a minute, Bob."

"How's dat, suh?" demanded Robert.

"The spirits tell me that something is going to happen to you if
you don't get food onto this table in a hurry," laughed
Gridley.

"Yes suh, comin' right up," exclaimed the man as he hastened
into the galley.

As Gridley ate, he went over the adventures of the last
seventy-two hours in careful detail and the three men sought to
arrive at some definite conjecture as to the distance he had
covered from the ship and the direction.

"Do you think that you could lead another party to the clearing
where you became separated from Von Horst and the Waziri?" asked
Zuppner.

"Yes, of course I could," replied Gridley, "because from the
point that we entered the forest we blazed the trees up to the time
we reached the trail, which we followed to the left. In fact I
would not be needed at all and if we decide to send out such a
party, I shall not accompany it."

The other officers looked at him in surprise and for a moment
there was an embarrassed silence.

"I have what I consider a better plan," continued Gridley.
"There are twenty-seven of us left. In the event of absolute
necessity, twelve men can operate the ship. That will leave fifteen
to form a new searching party. Leaving me out, you would have
fourteen, and after you have heard my plan, if you decide upon
sending out such a party, I suggest that Lieutenant Dorf command
it, leaving you, Captain Zuppner and Hines to navigate the ship in
the event that none of us returns, or that you finally decide to
set out in search of us."

"But I thought that you were not going," said Zuppner.

"I am not going with the searching party. I am going alone in
the scout plane, and my advice would be that you send out no
searching party for at least twenty-four hours after I depart, for
in that time I shall either have located those who are missing or
have failed entirely."

Zuppner shook his head, dubiously. "Hines, Dorf and I have
discussed the feasibility of using the scout plane," he said.
"Hines was very anxious to make the attempt, although he realizes
better than any of us that once a pilot is out of sight of the
O-220 he may never be able to locate it again, for you must
remember that we know nothing concerning any of the landmarks of
the country in the direction that our search must be
prosecuted."

"I have taken all that into consideration," replied Gridley,
"and I realize that it is at best but a forlorn hope."

"Let me undertake it," said Hines. "I have had more flying
experience than any of you with the possible exception of Captain
Zuppner, and it is out of the question that we should risk losing
him."

"Anyone of you three is probably better fitted to undertake such
a flight than I," replied Gridley, "but that does not relieve me of
the responsibility. I am more responsible than any other member of
this party for our being where we are and, therefore, my
responsibility for the safety of the missing members of the
expedition is greater than that of any of the rest of you. Under
the circumstances, then, I could not permit anyone else to
undertake this flight. I think that you will all understand and
appreciate how I feel and that you will do me the favor to
interpose no more objection."

It was several minutes thereafter before anyone spoke, the four
seeming to be immersed in the business of sipping their coffee and
smoking their cigarettes. It was Zuppner who broke the silence.

"Before you undertake this thing," he said, "you should have a
long sleep, and in the meantime we will get the plane out and have
it gone over thoroughly. You must have every chance for success
that we can give you."

"Thank you!" said Gridley. "I suppose you are right about the
sleep. I hate to waste the time, but if you will call me the moment
that the ship is ready I shall go to my cabin at once and get such
sleep as I can in the meantime."

While Gridley slept, the scout plane, carried aft in the keel
cabin, was lowered to the ground, where it underwent a careful
inspection and test by the engineers and officers of the O-220.

Even before the plane was ready Gridley appeared at the cabin
door of the O-220 and descended to the ground.

"You did not sleep long," said Zuppner.

"I do not know how long," said Gridley, "but I feel rested and
anyway I could not have slept longer, knowing that those fellows
are out there somewhere waiting and hoping for succor."

"What route do you expect to follow," asked Zuppner, "and how
are you planning to insure a reasonable likelihood of your being
able to return?"

"I shall fly directly over the forest as far as I think it at
all likely that they could have marched in the time that they have
been absent, assuming that they became absolutely confused and have
traveled steadily away from the ship. As soon as I have gained
sufficient altitude to make any observation I shall try and spot
some natural landmark, like a mountain or a body of water, near the
ship and from time to time, as I proceed, I shall make a note of
similar landmarks. I believe that in this way I can easily find my
way back, since at the furthest I cannot proceed over two hundred
and fifty miles from the O-220 and return to it with the fuel that
I can carry.

"After I have reached the furthest possible limits that I think
the party could have strayed, I shall commence circling, depending
upon the noise of the motor to attract their attention and, of
course, assuming that they will find some means of signaling their
presence to me, which they can do even in wooded country by
building smudges."

"If I find them in open country, I shall land, but even if I do
not find them it may be necessary for me to come down, and my
recent experiences have taught me not to venture far in Pellucidar
without a rifle."

After a careful inspection, Gridley shook hands with the three
remaining officers and bid farewell to the ship's company, all of
whom were anxious observers of his preparation for departure.

"Good-bye, old man," said Zuppner, "and may God and luck go with
you."

Gridley pressed the hand of the man he had come to look upon as
a staunch and loyal friend, and then took his seat in the open
cockpit of the scout plane. Two mechanics spun the propeller, the
motor roared and a moment later the block was kicked away and the
plane rolled out across the grassy meadowland towards the forest at
the far side. The watchers saw it rise swiftly and make a great
circle and they knew that Gridley was looking for a landmark. Twice
it circled above the open plain and then darted away across the
forest.

It had not been until he had made that first circle that Jason
Gridley had realized the handicap that this horizonless landscape
of Pellucidar had placed upon his chances of return. He had thought
of a mountain standing boldly out against the sky, for such a
landmark would have been almost constantly within the range of his
vision during the entire flight.

There were mountains in the distance, but they stood out against
no background of blue sky nor upon any horizon. They simply merged
with the landscape beyond them, curving upward in the distance.
Twice he circled, his keen eyes searching for any outstanding point
in the topography of the country beneath him, but there was nothing
that was more apparent than the grassy plain upon which the O-220
rested.

He felt that he could not waste time and fuel by searching
longer for a landmark that did not exist, and while he realized
that the plain would be visible for but a comparatively short
distance he was forced to accept it as his sole guide in lieu of a
better one.

Roaring above the leafy roof of the primeval forest, all that
transpired upon the ground below was hidden from him and it was
tantalizing to realize that he might have passed directly over the
heads of the comrades he sought, yet there was no other way.
Returning, he would either circle or hold an exaggerated zig-zag
course, watching carefully for sign of a signal.

For almost two hours Jason Gridley held a straight course,
passing over forest, plain and rolling, hilly country, but nowhere
did he see any sign of those he sought. Already he had reached the
limit of the distance he had planned upon coming when there loomed
ahead of him in the distance a range of lofty mountains. These
alone would have determined him to turn back, since his judgment
told him that the lost members of the party, should they have
chanced to come this far, would by now have realized that they were
traveling in the wrong direction.

As he banked to turn he caught a glimpse out of the corner of an
eye of something in the air above him and looking quickly back,
Jason Gridley caught his breath in astonishment.

Hovering now, almost above him, was a gigantic creature, the
enormous spread of whose wings almost equaled that of the plane he
was piloting. The man had a single glimpse of tremendous jaws,
armed with mighty teeth, in the very instant that he realized that
this mighty anachronism was bent upon attacking him.

Gridley was flying at an altitude of about three thousand feet
when the huge pteranodon launched itself straight at the ship.
Jason sought to elude it by diving. There was a terrific crash, a
roar, a splintering of wood and a grinding of metal as the
pteranodon swooped down upon its prey and full into the
propeller.

What happened then happened so quickly that Jason Gridley could
not have reconstructed the scene five seconds later.

The plane turned completely over and at the same instant Gridley
jumped. He jerked the rip cord of his parachute. Something struck
him on the head and he lost consciousness.

"It is a long way off," replied the ape-man. "It is not in
Pellucidar," but that the Sagoth could not understand, any more
than he could understand that a creature might be lost at all, for
inherent in him was that same homing instinct that marked all the
creatures of Pellucidar, and which constitutes a wise provision of
nature in a world without guiding celestial bodies.

Had it been possible to transport Tar-gash instantly to any
point within that mighty inner world, elsewhere than upon the
surface of an ocean, he could have unerringly found his way to the
very spot where he was born, and because that power was instinctive
he could not understand why Tarzan did not possess it.

"I know where there is a tribe of men," he said, presently.
"Perhaps they are your people. I shall lead you to them."

As Tarzan had no idea as to the direction in which the ship lay
and as it was remotely possible that Tar-gash was referring to the
members of the O-220 expedition, he felt that he was as well off
following where Tar-gash led as elsewhere, and so he signified his
readiness to accompany the Sagoth.

"How long since you saw this tribe of men," he asked after a
while, "and how long have they lived where you saw them?"

Upon the Sagoth's reply to these questions, the ape-man felt
that he might determine the possibility of the men to whom Tar-gash
referred being the members of his own party, for if they were
newcomers in the district then the chances were excellent that they
were the people he sought; but his questions elicited no
satisfactory reply for the excellent reason that time meant nothing
to Tar-gash. And so the two set out upon a leisurely search for the
tribe of men that Tar-gash knew of. It was leisurely because for
Tar-gash time did not exist; nor had it ever been a very important
factor in the existence of the ape-man, except in occasional
moments of emergency.

They were a strangely assorted pair—one a creature just
standing upon the threshold of humanity, the other an English Lord
in his own right, who was, at the same time, in many respects as
primitive as the savage, shaggy bull into whose companionship
chance had thrown him.

At first Tar-gash had been inclined to look with contempt upon
this creature of another race, which he considered far inferior to
his own in strength, agility, courage and woodcraft, but he soon
came to hold the ape-man in vast respect. And because he could
respect his prowess he became attached to him in bonds of loyalty
that were as closely akin to friendship as the savage nature of his
primitive mind permitted.

They hunted together and fought together. They swung through the
trees when the great cats hunted upon the ground, or they followed
game trails ages old beneath the hoary trees of Pellucidar or out
across her rolling, grassy, flower-spangled meadowland.

They lived well upon the fat of the land for both were mighty
hunters.

Tarzan fashioned a new bow and arrows and a stout spear, and
these, at first, the Sagoth refused even to notice, but presently
when he saw how easily and quickly they brought game to their
larder he evinced a keen interest and Tarzan taught him how to use
the weapons and later how to fashion them.

The country through which they traveled was well watered and was
alive with game. It was partly wooded with great stretches of open
land, where tremendous herds of herbivores grazed beneath the
eternal noonday sun, and because of these great herds the beasts of
prey were numerous—and such beasts!

Tarzan had thought that there was no world like his own world
and no jungle like his own jungle, but the more deeply he dipped
into the wonders of Pellucidar the more enamored he became of this
savage, primitive world, teeming with the wild life he loved best.
That there were few men was Pellucidar's chiefest recommendation.
Had there been none the ape-man might have considered this the land
of ultimate perfection, for who is there more conversant with the
cruelty and inconsideration of man than the savage beasts of the
jungle?

The friendship that had developed between Tarzan and the
Sagoth—and that was primarily based upon the respect which
each felt for the prowess of the other—increased as each
seemed to realize other admirable, personal qualities and
characteristics in his companion, not the least of which being a
common taciturnity. They spoke only when conversation seemed
necessary, and that, in reality, was seldom.

If man spoke only when he had something worth while to say and
said that as quickly as possible, ninety-eight per cent of the
human race might as well be dumb, thereby establishing a heavenly
harmony from pate to tonsil.

And so the companionship of Tar-gash, coupled with the romance
of strange sights and sounds and odors in this new world, acted
upon the ape-man as might a strong drug, filling him with
exhilaration and dulling his sense of responsibility, so that the
necessity of finding his people dwindled to a matter of minor
importance. Had he known that some of them were in trouble his
attitude would have changed immediately, but this he did not know.
On the contrary he was only aware that they had every facility for
insuring their safety and their ultimate return to the outer world
and that his absence would not handicap them in any particular.
However, when he did give the matter thought he knew that he must
return to them, that he must find them, and that sooner or later he
must go back with them to the world from which they had come.

But all such considerations were quite remote from his thoughts
as he and Tar-gash were crossing a rolling, tree-dotted plain in
their search for the tribe of men to which the Sagoth was guiding
him. By comparison with other plains they had crossed, this one
seemed strangely deserted, but the reason for this was evident in
the close-cropped grass which suggested that great herds had grazed
it off before moving on to new pastures. The absence of life and
movement was slightly depressing and Tarzan found himself
regretting the absence of even the dangers of the teeming land
through which they had just come.

They were well out toward the center of the plain and could see
the solid green of a great forest curving upward into the hazy
distance when the attention of both was attracted by a strange,
droning noise that brought them to a sudden halt. Simultaneously
both turned and looked backward and up into the sky from which the
sound seemed to come.

Far above and just emerging from the haze of the distance was a
tiny speck. "Quick!" exclaimed Tar-gash. "It is a thipdar," and
motioning Tarzan to follow him he ran swiftly to concealment
beneath a large tree.

"What is a thipdar?" asked Tarzan, as the two halted beneath the
friendly shade.

"A thipdar," said the Sagoth, "is a thipdar." Nor could he
describe it more fully other than to add that the thipdars were
sometimes used by the Mahars either to protect them or to hunt
their food.

"Is the thipdar a living thing?" demanded Tarzan.

"Yes," replied Tar-gash. "It lives an' is very strong and very
fierce."

"Then that is not a thipdar," said Tarzan.

"What is it then?" demanded the Sagoth.

"It is an aeroplane," replied Tarzan.

"What is that?" inquired the Sagoth.

"It would be hard to explain it to you," replied the ape-man.
"It is something that the men of my world build and in which they
fly through the air," and as he spoke he stepped out into the open,
where he might signal the pilot of the plane, which he was positive
was the one carried by the O-220 and which, he assumed, was
prosecuting a search for him.

"Come back," exclaimed Tar-gash. "You cannot fight a thipdar. It
will swoop down and carry you off if you are out in the open."

"It will not harm me," said Tarzan, "One of my friends is in
it."

"And you will be in it, too, if you do not come back under the
tree," replied Tar-gash.

As the plane approached, Tarzan ran around in a small circle to
attract the pilot's attention, stopping occasionally to wave his
arms, but the plane sped on above him and it was evident that its
pilot had not seen him.

Until it faded from sight in the distance, Tarzan of the Apes
stood upon the lonely plain, watching the ship that was bearing his
comrade away from him.

The sight of the ship awakened Tarzan to a sense of his
responsibility. He realized now that someone was risking his life
to save him and with this thought came a determination to exert
every possible effort to locate the O-220.

The passage of the plane opened many possibilities for
conjecture. If it was circling, which was possible, the direction
of its flight as it passed over him would have no bearing upon the
direction of the O-220, and if it were not circling, then how was
he to know whether it was traveling away from the ship in the
beginning of its quest, or was returning to it having concluded its
flight.

"That was not a thipdar," said Tar-gash, coming from beneath the
tree and standing at Tarzan's side. "It is a creature that I have
never seen before. It is larger and must be even more terrible than
a thipdar. It must have been very angry, for it growled terribly
all the time."

"It is not alive," said Tarzan. "It is something that the men of
my country build that they may fly through the air. Riding in it is
one of my friends. He is looking for me."

The Sagoth shook his head. "I am glad he did not come down," he
said. "He was either very angry or very hungry, otherwise he would
not have growled so loudly."

It was apparent to Tarzan that Tar-gash was entirely incapable
of comprehending his explanation of the aeroplane and that he would
always believe it was a huge, flying reptile; but that was of no
importance— the thing that troubled Tarzan being the question
of the direction in which he should now prosecute his search for
the O-220, and eventually he determined to follow in the direction
taken by the airship, for as this coincided with the direction in
which Tar-gash assured him he would find the tribe of human beings
for which they were searching, it seemed after all the wisest
course to pursue.

The drone of the motor had died away in the distance when Tarzan
and Tar-gash took up their interrupted journey across the plain and
into broken country of low, rocky hills.

The trail, which was well marked and which Tar-gash said led
through the hills, followed the windings of a shallow canyon, which
was rimmed on one side by low cliffs, in the face of which there
were occasional caves and crevices. The bottom of the canyon was
strewn with fragments of rock of various sizes. The vegetation was
sparse and there was every indication of an aridity such as Tarzan
had not previously encountered since he left the O-220, and as it
seemed likely that both game and water would be scarce here, the
two pushed on at a brisk, swinging walk.

It was very quiet and Tarzan's ears were constantly upon the
alert to catch the first sound of the hum of the motor of the
returning aeroplane, when suddenly the silence was shattered by the
sound of hoarse screeching which seemed to be coming from a point
further up the canyon.

Tar-gash halted. "Dyal," he said.

Tarzan looked at the Sagoth questioningly.

"It is a Dyal," repeated Tar-gash, "and it is angry."

"What is a Dyal?" asked Tarzan.

"It is a terrible bird," replied the Sagoth; "but its meat is
good, and Tar-gash is hungry."

That was enough. No matter how terrible the Dyal might be, it
was meat and Tar-gash was hungry, and so the two beasts of prey
crept warily forward, stalking their quarry. A vagrant breeze,
wafting gently down the canyon, brought to the nostrils of the
ape-man a strange, new scent. It was a bird scent, slightly
suggestive of the scent of an ostrich, and from its volume Tarzan
guessed that it might come from a very large bird, a suggestion
that was borne out by the loud screeching of the creature,
intermingled with which was a scratching and a scraping sound.

Tar-gash, who was in the lead and who was taking advantage of
all the natural shelter afforded by the fragments of rock with
which the canyon bed was strewn, came to a halt upon the lower side
of a great boulder, behind which he quickly withdrew, and as Tarzan
joined him he signaled the ape-man to look around the corner of the
boulder.

Following the suggestion of his companion, Tarzan saw the author
of the commotion that had attracted their attention. Being a savage
jungle beast, he exhibited no outward sign of the astonishment he
felt as he gazed upon the mighty creature that was clawing
frantically at a crevice in the cliffside.

To Tarzan it was a nameless creature of another world. To
Tar-gash it was simply a Dyal. Neither knew that he was looking
upon a Phororhacos of the Miocene. They saw a huge creature whose
crested head, larger than that of a horse, towered eight feet above
the ground. Its powerful, curved beak gaped wide as it screeched in
anger. It beat its short, useless wing in a frenzy of rage as it
struck with its mighty three-toed talons at something just within
the fissure before it. And then it was that Tarzan saw that the
thing at which it struck was a spear, held by human hands—a
pitifully inadequate weapon with which to attempt to ward off the
attack of the mighty Dyal.

As Tarzan surveyed the creature he wondered how Tar-gash, armed
only with his puny club, might hope to pit himself in successful
combat against it. He saw the Sagoth creep stealthily out from
behind their rocky shelter and move slowly to another closer to the
Dyal and behind it, and so absorbed was the bird in its attack upon
the man within the fissure that it did not notice the approach of
the enemy in its rear.

The moment that Tar-gash was safely concealed behind the new
shelter, Tarzan followed him and now they were within fifty feet of
the great bird.

The Sagoth, grasping his club firmly by the small end, arose and
ran swiftly from his concealment, straight toward the giant Dyal,
and Tarzan followed, fitting an arrow to his bow.

Tar-gash had covered but half the distance when the sound of his
approach attracted the attention of the bird. Wheeling about, it
discovered the two rash creatures who dared to interfere with its
attack upon its quarry, and with a loud screech and wide distended
beak it charged them.

The instant that the Dyal had turned and discovered them,
Tar-gash had commenced whirling his club about his head and as the
bird charged he launched it at one of those mighty legs, and on the
instant Tarzan understood the purpose of the Sagoth's method of
attack. The heavy club, launched by the mighty muscles of the beast
man, would snap the leg bone that it struck, and then the enormous
fowl would be at the mercy of the Sagoth. But if it did not strike
the leg, what then? Almost certain death for Tar-gash.

Tarzan had long since had reason to appreciate his companion's
savage disregard of life in the pursuit of flesh, but this seemed
the highest pinnacle to which rashness might ascend and still
remain within the realm of sanity.

And, indeed, there happened that which Tarzan had
feared—the club missed its mark. Tarzan's bow sang and an
arrow sank deep into the breast of the Dyal. Tar-gash leaped
swiftly to one side, eluding the charge, and another arrow pierced
the bird's feathers and hide. And then the ape-man sprang quickly
to his right as the avalanche of destruction bore down upon him,
its speed undiminished by the force of the two arrows buried so
deeply within it.

Before the Dyal could turn to pursue either of them, Tar-gash
hurled a rock, many of which were scattered upon the ground about
them. It struck the Dyal upon the side of the head, momentarily
dazing him, and Tarzan drove home two more arrows. As he did so,
the Dyal wheeled drunkenly toward him and as he faced about a great
spear drove past Tarzan's shoulder and plunged deep into the breast
of the maddened creature, and to the impact of this last missile it
went down, falling almost at the feet of the ape-man.

Ignorant though he was of the strength and the methods of attack
and defense of this strange bird, Tarzan nevertheless hesitated not
an instant and as the Dyal fell he was upon it with drawn hunting
knife.

So quickly was he in and out that he had severed its windpipe
and was away again before he could become entangled in its death
struggle, and then it was that for the first time he saw the man
who had cast the spear.

Standing erect, a puzzled expression upon his face, was a tall,
stalwart warrior, his slightly bronzed skin gleaming in the
sunlight, his shaggy head of hair bound back by a deerskin
band.

For weapons, in addition to his spear, he carried a stone knife,
thrust into the girdle that supported his G-string. His eyes were
well set and intelligent. His features were regular and well cut.
Altogether he was as splendid a specimen of manhood as Tarzan had
ever beheld.

Tar-gash, who had recovered his club, was advancing toward the
stranger. "I am Tar-gash," he said. "I kill."

The stranger drew his stone knife and waited, looking first at
Tar-gash and then at Tarzan.

The ape-man stepped in front of Tar-gash. "Wait," he commanded.
"Why do you kill?"

"He is a gilak," replied the Sagoth.

"He saved you from the Dyal," Tarzan reminded Tar-gash. "My
arrows would not stop the bird. Had it not been for his spear, one
or both of us must have died."

The Sagoth appeared puzzled. He scratched his head in
perplexity. "But if I do not kill him, he will kill me," he said
finally.

Tarzan turned toward the stranger. "I am Tarzan," he said. "This
is Tar-gash," and he pointed at the Sagoth and waited.

"I am Thoar," said the stranger.

"Let us be friends," said Tarzan. "We have no quarrel with
you."

Again the stranger looked puzzled.

"Do you understand the language of the Sagoths?" asked Tarzan,
thinking that possibly the man might not have understood him.

Thoar nodded. "A little," he said, "but why should we be
friends?"

"Why should we be enemies?" countered the ape-man.

Thoar shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "It is always
thus."

"Together we have slain the Dyal," said Tarzan. "Had we not come
it would have killed you. Had you not cast your spear it would have
killed us. Therefore, we should be friends, not enemies. Where are
you going?"

"Back to my own country," replied Thoar, nodding in the
direction that Tarzan and Tar-gash had been traveling.

"We, too, are going in that direction," said Tarzan. "Let us go
together. Six hands are better than four."

Thoar glanced at the Sagoth.

"Shall we all go together as friends, Tar-gash?" demanded
Tarzan.

"It is not done," said the Sagoth, precisely as though he had
behind him thousands of years of civilization and culture.

Tarzan smiled one of his rare smiles. "We shall do it, then," he
said. "Come!"

As though taking it for granted that the others would obey his
command, the ape-man turned to the body of the Dyal and, drawing
his hunting knife, fell to work cutting off portions of the meat.
For a moment Thoar and Tar-gash hesitated, eyeing each other
suspiciously, and then the bronzed warrior walked over to assist
Tarzan and presently Tar-gash joined them.

Thoar exhibited keen interest in Tarzan's steel knife, which
slid so easily through the flesh while he hacked and hewed
laboriously with his stone implement; while Tar-gash seemed not
particularly to notice either of the implements as he sunk his
strong fangs into the breast of the Dyal and tore away a large hunk
of the meat, which he devoured raw. Tarzan was about to do the
same, having been raised exclusively upon a diet of raw meat, when
he saw Thoar preparing to make fire, which he accomplished by the
primitive expedient of friction. The three ate in silence, the
Sagoth carrying his meat to a little distance from the others,
perhaps because in him the instinct of the wild beast was
stronger.

When they had finished they followed the trail upward toward the
pass through which it led across the hills, and as they went Tarzan
sought to question Thoar concerning his country and its people, but
so limited is the primitive vocabulary of the Sagoth and so meager
Thoar's knowledge of this language that they found communication
difficult and Tarzan determined to master Thoar's tongue.

Considerable experience in learning new dialects and languages
rendered the task far from difficult and as the ape-man never for a
moment relinquished a purpose he intended to achieve, nor ever
abandoned a task that he had set himself until it had been
successfully concluded, he made rapid progress which was greatly
facilitated by the interest which Thoar took in instructing
him.

As they reached the summit of the low hills, they saw, hazily in
the far distance, what appeared to be a range of lofty
mountains.

"There," said Thoar, pointing, "lies Zoram."

"What is Zoram?" asked Tarzan.

"It is my country," replied the warrior. "It lies in the
Mountains of the Thipdars."

This was the second time that Tarzan had had a reference to
thipdars. Tar-gash had said the aeroplane was a thipdar and now
Thoar spoke of the Mountains of Thipdars.

"What is a thipdar?" he asked.

Thoar looked at him in astonishment. "From what country do you
come?" he demanded, "that you do not know what a thipdar is and do
not speak the language of the gilaks?"

"I am not of Pellucidar," said Tarzan.

"I could believe that," said Thoar, "if there were any other
place from which you could be, but there is not, except Molop Az,
the flaming sea upon which Pellucidar floats. But the only
inhabitants of the Molop Az are the little demons, who carry the
dead who are buried in the ground, piece by piece, down to Molop
Az, and while I have never seen one of these little demons I am
sure that they are not like you."

"No," said Tarzan, "I am not from Molop Az, yet sometimes I have
thought that the world from which I come is inhabited by demons,
both large and small."

As they hunted and ate and slept and marched together, these
three creatures found their confidence in one another increasing so
that even Tar-gash looked no longer with suspicion upon Thoar, and
though they represented three distinct periods in the ascent of
man, each separated from the other by countless thousands of years,
yet they had so much in common that the advance which man had made
from Tar-gash to Tarzan seemed scarcely a fair recompense for the
time and effort which Nature must have expended.

Tarzan could not even conjecture the length of time he had been
absent from the O-220, but he was confident that he must be upon
the wrong trail, yet it seemed futile to turn back since he could
not possibly have any idea as to what direction he should take. His
one hope was that either he might be sighted by the pilot of the
plane, which he was certain was hunting for him, or that the O-220,
in cruising about, would eventually pass within signaling distance
of him. In the meantime he might as well be with Tar-gash and Thoar
as elsewhere.

The three had eaten and slept again and were resuming their
journey when Tarzan's keen eyes espied from the summit of a low
hill something lying upon an open plain at a considerable distance
ahead of them. He did not know what it was, but he was sure that
whatever it was, it was not a part of the natural landscape, there
being about it that indefinable suggestion of discord, or, more
properly, lack of harmony with its surroundings that every man
whose perception has not been dulled by city dwelling will
understand. And as it was almost instinctive with Tarzan to
investigate anything that he did not understand, he turned his
footsteps in the direction of the thing that he had seen.

The object that had aroused his curiosity was hidden from him
almost immediately after he started the descent of the hill upon
which he had stood when he discovered it; nor did it come again
within the range of his vision until he was close upon it, when to
his astonishment and dismay he saw that it was the wreck of an
aeroplane.

JANA, The Red Flower of Zoram, paused and looked
back across the rocky crags behind and below her. She was very
hungry and it had been long since she had slept, for behind her,
dogging her trail, were the four terrible men from Pheli, which
lies at the foot of the Mountains of the Thipdars, beyond the land
of Zoram.

For just an instant she stood erect and then she threw herself
prone upon the rough rock, behind a jutting fragment that partially
concealed her, and here she looked back along the way she had come,
across a pathless waste of tumbled granite. Mountain-bred, she had
lived her life among the lofty peaks of the Mountains of the
Thipdars, considering contemptuously the people of the lowland to
which those who pursued her belonged. Perchance, if they followed
her here she might be forced to concede them some measure of
courage and possibly to look upon them with a slightly lessened
contempt, yet even so she would never abate her effort to escape
them.

Bred in the bone of The Red Flower was loathing of the men of
Pheli, who ventured occasionally into the fastnesses of the
Mountains of the Thipdars to steal women, for the pride and the
fame of the mountain people lay in the beauty of their girls, and
so far had this fame spread that men came from far countries, out
of the vast river basin below their lofty range, and risked a
hundred deaths in efforts to steal such a mate as Jana, The Red
Flower of Zoram.

The girl's sister, Lana, had been thus stolen, and within her
memory two other girls of Zoram, by the men from the lowland, and
so the fear, as well as the danger, was ever present. Such a fate
seemed to The Red Flower worse than death, since not only would it
take her forever from her beloved mountains, but make her a
low-country woman and her children low-country children than which,
in the eyes of the mountain people, there could be no deeper
disgrace, for the mountain men mated only with mountain women, the
men of Zoram, and Clovi, and Daroz taking mates from their own
tribes or stealing them from their neighbors.

Jana was beloved by many of the young warriors of Zoram, and
though, as yet, there had been none who had fired her own heart to
love she knew that some day she would mate with one of them, unless
in the meantime she was stolen by a warrior from another tribe.

Were she to fall into the hands of one from either Clovi or
Daroz she would not be disgraced and she might even be happy, but
she was determined to die rather than to be taken by the men from
Pheli.

Long ago, it seemed to her now, who had no means for measuring
time, she had been searching for thipdar eggs among the lofty crags
above the caverns that were the home of her people when a great
hairy man leaped from behind a rock and endeavored to seize her.
Active as a chamois, she eluded him with ease, but he stood between
her and the village and when she sought to circle back she
discovered that he had three companions who effectually barred her
way, and then had commenced the flight and the pursuit that had
taken her far from Zoram among lofty peaks where she had never been
before.

Not far below her, four squat, hairy men had stopped to rest.
"Let us turn back," growled one. "You can never catch her, Skruk,
in country like this, which is fit only for thipdars and no place
for men."

Skruk shook his bullet head. "I have seen her," he said, "and I
shall have her if I have to chase her to the shores of Molop
Az."

"Our hands are torn by the sharp rock," said another.

"Our sandals are almost gone and our feet bleed. We cannot go
on. We shall die."

"You may die," said Skruk, "but until then you shall go on. I am
Skruk, the chief, and I have spoken."

The others growled resentfully, but when Skruk took up the
pursuit again they followed him. Being from a low country they
found strenuous exertion at these high altitudes exhausting, it is
true, but the actual basis for their disinclination to continue the
pursuit was the terror which the dizzy heights inspired in them and
the perilous route along which The Red Flower of Zoram was leading
them.

From above Jana saw them ascending, and knowing that they were
again upon the right trail she stood erect in plain view of them.
Her single, soft garment made from the pelt of tarag cubs, whipped
about her naked legs, half revealing, half concealing the rounded
charms of her girlish figure. The noonday sun shone down upon her
light, bronzed skin, glistening from the naked contours of a
perfect shoulder and imparting golden glints to her hair that was
sometimes a lustrous brown and again a copper bronze. It was piled
loosely upon her head and held in place by slender, hollow bones of
the dimorphodon, a little long-tailed cousin of the thipdar. The
upper ends of these bone pins were ornamented with carving and some
of them were colored. A fillet of soft skin ornamented in colors
encircled her brow and she wore bracelets and anklets made of the
vertebrae of small animals, strung upon leather thongs. These, too,
were carved and colored. Upon her feet were stout, little sandals,
soled with the hide of the mastodon and from the center of her
headband rose a single feather. At her hip was a stone knife and in
her right hand a light spear.

She stooped and picking up a small fragment of rock hurled it
down at Skruk and his companions. "Go back to your swamps, jaloks
of the low country," she cried. "The Red Flower of Zoram is not for
you," and then she turned and sped away across the pathless
granite.

To her left lay Zoram, but there was a mighty chasm between her
and the city. Along its rim she made her way, sometimes upon its
very verge, but unshaken by the frightful abyss below her.
Constantly she sought for a means of descent, since she knew that
if she could cross it she might circle back toward Zoram, but the
walls rose sheer for two thousand feet offering scarce a handhold
in a hundred feet.

As she rounded the shoulder of the peak she saw a vast country
stretching away below her—a country that she had never seen
before—and she knew that she had crossed the mighty range and
was looking on the land that lay beyond. The fissure that she had
been following she could see widening below her into a great canyon
that led out through foothills to a mighty plain. The slopes of the
lower hills were wooded and beyond the plain were forests.

This was a new world to Jana of Zoram, but it held no lure for
her; it did not beckon to her for she knew that savage beasts and
savage men of the low countries roamed its plains and forests.

To her right rose the mountains she had rounded; to her left was
the deep chasm, and behind her were Skruk and his three
companions.

For a moment she feared that she was trapped, but after
advancing a few yards she saw that the sheer wall of the abyss had
given way to a tumbled mass of broken ledges. But whether there
were any means of descent, even here, she did not know—she
could only hope.

From pausing often to search for a way down into the gorge, Jana
had lost precious time and now she became suddenly aware that her
pursuers were close behind her. Again she sprang forward, leaping
from rock to rock, while they redoubled their speed and stumbled
after her in pursuit, positive now that they were about to capture
her.

Jana glanced below, and a hundred feet beneath her she saw a
tumbled mass of granite that had fallen from above and formed a
wide ledge. Just ahead the mountain jutted out forming an
overhanging cliff.

She glanced back. Skruk was already in sight. He was stumbling
awkwardly along in a clumsy run and breathing heavily, but he was
very near and she must choose quickly.

There was but one way—over the edge of the cliff lay
temporary escape or certain death. A leather thong, attached a foot
below the point of her spear, she fastened around her neck Letting
the spear hang down her back, she threw herself upon the ground and
slid over the edge of the cliff. Perhaps there were handholds;
perhaps not. She glanced down. The face of the cliff was rough and
not perpendicular, leaning in a little toward the mountain. She
felt about with her toes and finally she located a protuberance
that would hold her weight. Then she relinquished her hold upon the
top of the cliff with one hand and searched about for a crevice in
which to insert her fingers, or a projection to which she could
cling.

She must work quickly for already the footsteps of the Phelians
were sounding above her. She found a hold to which she might cling
with scarcely more than the tips of her fingers, but it was
something and the horror of the lowland was just above her and only
death below.

She relinquished her hold upon the cliff edge with her other
hand and lowered herself very slowly down the face of the cliff,
searching with her free foot for another support.

One foot, two, three she descended, and then attracted by a
noise above her she glanced up and saw the hairy face of Skruk just
above her.

"Hold my legs," he shouted to his companions, at the same time
throwing himself prone at the edge of the cliff, and as they obeyed
his command he reached down a long, hairy arm to seize Jana, and
the girl was ready to let go all holds and drop to the jagged rocks
beneath when Skruk's hand should touch her. Still looking upward
she saw the fist of the Phelian but a few inches from her face.

The outstretched fingers of the man brushed the hair of the
girl. One of her groping feet found a tiny ledge and she lowered
herself from immediate danger of capture. Skruk was furious, but
that one glance into the upturned face of the girl so close beneath
him only served to add to his determination to possess her. No
lengths were too far now to go to achieve his heart's desire, but
as he glanced down that frightful escarpment his savage heart was
filled with fear for the safety of his prize. It seemed incredible
that she had descended as far as she had without falling and she
had only commenced the descent. He knew that he and his companions
could not follow the trail that she was blazing and he realized,
too, that if they menaced her from above she might be urged to a
greater haste that would spell her doom.

With these thoughts in his mind Skruk arose to his feet and
turned to his companions. "We shall seek an easier way down," he
said in a low voice, and then leaning over the cliff edge, he
called down to Jana. "You have beaten me, mountain girl," he said.
"I go back now to Pheli in the lowland. But I shall return and then
I shall take you with me as my mate."

"May the thipdars catch you and tear out your heart before ever
you reach Pheli again," cried Jana. Skruk made no reply and she saw
that they were going back the way that they had come, but she did
not know that they were merely looking for an easier way into the
bottom of the gorge toward which she was descending, or that
Skruk's words had been but a ruse to throw her off her guard.

The Red Flower of Zoram, relieved of immediate necessity for
haste, picked her way cautiously down the face of the cliff to the
first ledge of tumbled granite. Here, by good fortune, she found
the egg of a thipdar, which furnished her with both food and
drink.

It was a long, slow descent to the bottom of the gorge, but
finally the girl accomplished it, and in the meantime Skruk and his
companions had found an easier way and had descended into the gorge
several miles above her.

For a moment after she reached the bottom Jana was undecided as
to what course to pursue. Instinct urged her to turn upward along
the gorge in the general direction of Zoram, but her judgment
prompted her to descend and skirt the base of the mountain to the
left in search of an easier route back across them. And so she came
leisurely down toward the valley, while behind her followed the
four men from Pheli.

The canyon wall at her left, while constantly lessening in
height as she descended, still presented a formidable obstacle,
which it seemed wiser to circumvent than to attempt to surmount,
and so she continued on downward toward the mouth of the canyon,
where it debouched upon a lovely valley.

Never before in all her life had Jana approached the lowland so
closely. Never before had she dreamed how lovely the lowland
country might be, for she had always been taught that it was a
horrid place and no fit abode for the stalwart tribes of the
mountains.

The lure of the beauties and the new scenes unfolding before
her, coupled with a spirit of exploration which was being born
within her, led her downward into the valley much farther than
necessity demanded.

Suddenly her attention was attracted by a strange sound coming
suddenly from on high—a strange, new note in the diapason of
her savage world, and glancing upward she finally descried the
creature that must be the author of it.

A great thipdar, it appeared to be, moaning dismally far above
her head—but what a thipdar! Never in her life had she seen
one as large as this.

As she watched she saw another thipdar, much smaller, soaring
above it. Suddenly the lesser one swooped upon its intended prey.
Faintly she heard sounds of shattering and tearing and then the two
combatants plunged earthward. As they did so she saw something
separate itself from the mass and as the two creatures, partially
supported by the wings of the larger, fell in a great, gliding
spiral a most remarkable thing happened to the piece that had
broken loose. Something shot out of it and unfolded above it in the
air—something that resembled a huge toadstool, and as it did
so the swift flight of the falling body was arrested and it floated
slowly earthward, swinging back and forth as she had seen a heavy
stone do when tied at the end of a buckskin thong.

As the strange thing descended nearer, Jana's eyes went wide in
surprise and terror as she recognized the dangling body as that of
a man.

Her people had few superstitions, not having advanced
sufficiently in the direction of civilization to have developed a
priesthood, but here was something that could be explained
according to no natural logic. She had seen two great, flying
reptiles meet in battle, high in air and out of one of them had
come a man. It was incredible, but more than all it was terrifying.
And so The Red Flower of Zoram, reacting in the most natural way,
turned and fled.

Back toward the canyon she raced, but she had gone only a short
distance when, directly in front of her, she saw Skruk and his
three companions.

They, too, had seen the battle in mid-air and they had seen the
thing floating downward toward the ground, and while they had not
recognized it for what it was they had been terrified and were
themselves upon the point of fleeing when Skruk descried Jana
running toward them. Instantly every other consideration was
submerged in his desire to have her, and growling commands to his
terrified henchmen he led them toward the girl.

When Jana discovered them she turned to the right and tried to
circle about them, but Skruk sent one to intercept her and when she
turned in the opposite direction, the four spread out across her
line of retreat so as to effectually bar her escape in that
direction.

Choosing any fate rather than that which must follow her capture
by Skruk, Jana turned again and fled down the valley and in pursuit
leaped the four squat, hairy men of Pheli. At the instant that
Jason Gridley had pulled the rip cord of his parachute a fragment
of the broken propeller of his plane had struck him a glancing blow
upon the head, and when he regained consciousness he found himself
lying upon a bed of soft grasses at the head of a valley, where a
canyon, winding out of lofty mountains, opened onto leveler
land.

Disgusted by the disastrous end of his futile search for his
companions, Gridley arose and removed the parachute harness. He was
relieved to discover that he had suffered no more serious injury
than a slight abrasion of the skin upon one temple.

His first concern was for his ship and though he knew that it
must be a total wreck he hoped against hope that he might at least
salvage his rifle and ammunition from it. But even as the thought
entered his mind it was forced into the background by a chorus of
savage yelps and growls that caused him to turn his eyes quickly to
the right. At the summit of a little rise of ground a short
distance away he saw four of the ferocious wolf dogs of Pellucidar.
As hyaenodons they were known to the paleontologists of the outer
crust, and as jaloks to the men of the inner world. As large as
full grown mastiffs they stood there upon their short, powerful
legs, their broad, strong jaws parted in angry growls, their
snarling lips drawn back to reveal their powerful fangs.

As he discovered them Jason became aware that their attention
was not directed upon him—that they seemed not as yet to have
discovered him—and as he looked in the direction that they
were looking he was astounded to see a girl running swiftly toward
them, and at a short distance behind the girl four men, who were
apparently pursuing her.

As the vicious growls of the jaloks broke angrily upon the
comparative silence of the scene, the girl paused and it was
evident that she had not before been aware of the presence of this
new menace. She glanced at them and then back at her pursuers.

The hyaenodons advanced toward her at an easy trot. In piteous
bewilderment she glanced about her. There was but one way open for
escape and then as she turned to flee in that direction her eyes
fell upon Jason Gridley, straight ahead in her path of flight and
again she hesitated.

To the man came an intuitive understanding of her quandary.
Menaced from the rear and upon two sides by known enemies, she was
suddenly faced by what might indeed be another, cutting off all
hope of retreat.

Acting impulsively and in accordance with the code that
dominates his kind, Gridley ran toward the girl, shouting words of
encouragement and motioning her to come to him.

Skruk and his companions were closing in upon her from behind
and from her right, while upon her left came the jaloks. For just
an instant longer, she hesitated and then seemingly determined to
place her fate in the hands of an unknown, rather than surrender it
to the inevitable doom which awaited her either at the hands of the
Phelians or the fangs of the jaloks, she turned and sped toward
Gridley, and behind her came the four beasts and the four men.

As Gridley ran forward to meet the girl he drew one of his
revolvers, a heavy .45 caliber Colt.

The hyaenodons were charging now and the leader was close behind
her, and at that instant Jana tripped and fell, and simultaneously
Jason reached her side, but so close was the savage beast that when
Jason fired the hyaenodon's body fell across the body of the
girl.

The shot, a startling sound to which none of them was
accustomed, brought the other hyaenodons to a sudden stop, as well
as the four men, who were racing rapidly forward under Skruk's
command in an effort to save the girl from the beasts.

Quickly rolling the body of the jalok from its intended victim,
Jason lifted the girl to her feet and as he did so she snatched her
stone knife from its scabbard. Jason Gridley did not know how near
he was to death at that instant. To Jana, every man except the men
of Zoram was a natural enemy. The first law of nature prompted her
to kill lest she be killed, but in the instant before she struck
the blade home she saw something in the eyes of this man, something
in the expression upon his face that she had never seen in the eyes
or face of any man before. As plainly as though it had been spoken
in words she understood that this stranger was prompted by
solicitousness for her safety; that he was prompted by a desire to
befriend rather than to harm her, and though in common with the
jaloks and the Phelians she had been terrified by the loud noise
and the smoke that had burst from the strange stick in his hand she
knew that this had been the means that he had taken to protect her
from the jaloks.

Her knife hand dropped to her side, and, as a slow smile lighted
the face of the stranger, The Red Flower of Zoram smiled back in
response.

They stood as they had when he had lifted her from the ground,
his left arm about her shoulders supporting her and he maintained
this unconscious gesture of protection as he turned to face the
girl's enemies, who, after their first fright, seemed on the point
of returning to the attack.

Two of the hyaenodons, however, had transferred their attention
to Skruk and his companions, while the third was slinking bare
fanged, toward Jason and Jana.

The men of Pheli stood ready to receive the charge of the
hyaenodons, having taken positions in line, facing their attackers,
and at sufficient intervals to permit them properly to wield their
clubs. As the beasts charged two of the men hurled their weapons,
each singling out one of the fierce carnivores. Skruk hurled his
weapon with the greater accuracy, breaking one of the forelegs of
the beast attacking him, and as it went down the Phelian standing
next to Skruk leaped forward and rained heavy blows upon its
skull.

The cudgel aimed at the other beast struck it a glancing blow
upon the shoulder, but did not stop it and an instant later it was
upon the Phelian whose only defense now was his crude stone knife.
But his companion, who had reserved his club for such an emergency,
leaped in and swung lustily at the savage brute, while Skruk and
the other, having disposed of their adversary, came to the
assistance of their fellows.

The savage battle between men and beasts went unnoticed by
Jason, whose whole attention was occupied by the fourth wolf dog as
it moved forward to attack him and his companion.

Jana, fully aware that the attention of each of the men was
fully centered upon the attacking beasts, realized that now was the
opportune moment to make a break for freedom. She felt the arm of
the stranger about her shoulders, but it rested there
lightly—so lightly that she might easily disengage herself by
a single, quick motion. But there was something in the feel of that
arm about her that imparted to her a sense of greater safety than
she had felt since she had left the caverns of her
people—perhaps the protective instinct which dominated the
man subconsciously exerted its natural reaction upon the girl to
the end that instead of fleeing she was content to remain, sensing
greater safety where she was than elsewhere.

And then the fourth hyaenodon charged, growling, to be met by
the roaring bark of the Colt. The creature stumbled and went down,
stopped by the force of the heavy charge—but only for an
instant—again it was up, maddened by pain, desperate in the
face of death. Bloody foam crimsoned its jowls as it leaped for
Jason's throat.

Again the Colt spoke, and then the man went down beneath the
heavy body of the wolf dog, and at the same instant the Phelians
dispatched the second of the beasts which had attacked them.

Jason Gridley was conscious of a great weight upon him as he was
borne to the ground and he sought to fend those horrid jaws from
his throat by interposing his left forearm, but the jaws never
closed and when Gridley struggled from beneath the body of the
beast and scrambled to his feet he saw the girl tugging upon the
shaft of her crude, stone-tipped spear in an effort to drag it from
the body of the jalok.

Whether his last bullet or the spear had dispatched the beast
the man did not know, and he was only conscious of gratitude and
admiration for the brave act of the slender girl, who had stood her
ground at his side, facing the terrible beast without loss of poise
or resourcefulness.

The four jaloks lay dead, but Jason Gridley's troubles were by
no means over, for scarcely had he arisen after the killing of the
second beast when the girl seized him by the arm and pointed toward
something behind him.

"They are coming," she said. "They will kill you and take me.
Oh, do not let them take me!"

Jason did not understand a word that she had said, but it was
evident from her tone of voice and from the expression upon her
beautiful face that she was more afraid of the four men approaching
them than she had been of the hyaenodons, and as he turned to face
them he could not wonder, for the men of Pheli looked quite as
brutal as the hyaenodons and there was nothing impressive or
magnificent in their appearance as there had been in the mien of
the savage carnivores—a fact which is almost universally
noticeable when a comparison is made between the human race and the
so-called lower orders.

Gridley raised his revolver and leveled it at the leading
Phelian, who happened to be another than Skruk. "Beat it!" he said.
"Your faces frighten the young lady."

"I am Gluf," said the Phelian. "I kill."

"If I could understand you I might agree with you," replied
Jason, "but your exuberant whiskers and your diminutive forehead
suggest that you are all wet." He did not want to kill the man, but
he realized that he could not let him approach too closely. But if
he had any compunction in the matter of manslaughter, it was
evident that the girl did not for she was talking volubly,
evidently urging him to some action, and when she realized that he
could not understand her she touched his pistol with a brown
forefinger and then pointed meaningly at Gluf.

The fellow was now within fifteen paces of them and Jason could
see that his companions were starting to circle them. He knew that
something must be done immediately and prompted by humanitarian
motives he fired his Colt, aiming above the head of the approaching
Phelian. The sharp report stopped all four of them, but when they
realized that none of them was injured they broke into a torrent of
taunts and threats, and Gluf, inspired only by a desire to capture
the girl so that they might return to Pheli, resumed his advance,
at the same time commencing to swing his club menacingly. Then it
was that Jason Gridley regretfully shot, and shot to kill. Gluf
stopped in his tracks, stiffened, whirled about and sprawled
forward upon his face.

Wheeling upon the others, Gridley fired again, for he realized
that those menacing clubs were almost as effective at short range
as was his Colt. Another Phelian dropped in his tracks, and then
Skruk and his remaining companion turned and fled.

"Well," said Gridley, looking about him at the bodies of the
four hyaenodons and the corpses of the two men, "this is a great
little country, but I'll be gosh-darned if I see how anyone grows
up to enjoy it."

The Red Flower of Zoram stood looking at him admiringly.
Everything about this stranger aroused her interest, piqued her
curiosity and stimulated her imagination. In no particular was he
like any other man she had ever seen. Not one item of his strange
apparel corresponded to anything that any other human being of her
acquaintance wore. The remarkable weapon, which spat smoke and fire
to the accompaniment of a loud roar, left her dazed with awe and
admiration; but perhaps the outstanding cause for astonishment,
when she gave it thought, was the fact that she was not afraid of
this man. Not only was the fear of strangers inherent in her, but
from earliest childhood she had been taught to expect only the
worst from men who were not of her own tribe and to flee from them
upon any and all occasions. Perhaps it was his smile that had
disarmed her, or possibly there was something in his friendly,
honest eyes that had won her immediate trust and confidence.
Whatever the cause, however, the fact remained that The Red Flower
of Zoram made no effort to escape from Jason Gridley, who now found
himself completely lost in a strange world, which in itself was
quite sad enough without having added to it responsibilities for
the protection of a strange, young woman, who could understand
nothing that he said to her and whom, in turn, he could not
understand.

TAR-GASH and Thoar looked with wonder upon the
wreckage of the plane and Tarzan hastily searched it for the body
of the pilot. The ape-man experienced at least temporary relief
when he discovered that there was no body there, and a moment later
he found footprints in the turf upon the opposite side of the
plane—the prints of a booted foot which he recognized
immediately as having been made by Jason Gridley—and this
evidence assured him that the American had not been killed and
apparently not even badly injured by the fall. And then he
discovered something else which puzzled him exceedingly. Mingling
with the footprints of Gridley and evidently made at the same time
were those of a small sandaled foot.

A further brief examination revealed the fact that two persons,
one of them Gridley and the other apparently a female or a youth of
some Pellucidarian tribe, who had accompanied him, had approached
the plane after it had crashed, remained in its vicinity for a
short time and then returned in the direction from which they had
come. With the spoor plain before him there was nothing for Tarzan
to do other than to follow it.

The evidence so far suggested that Gridley had been forced to
abandon the plane in air and that he had safely made a parachute
descent, but where and under what circumstances he had picked up
his companion, Tarzan could not even hazard a guess.

He found it difficult to get Thoar away from the aeroplane, the
strange thing having so fired his curiosity and imagination that he
must needs remain near it and ask a hundred questions concerning
it.

With Tar-gash, however, the reaction was entirely different. He
had glanced at it with only a faint show of curiosity or interest,
and then he had asked one question. "What is it?"

"This is the thing that passed over us and which you said was a
flying reptile," replied Tarzan. "I told you at that time that one
of my friends was in it. Something happened and the thing fell, but
my friend escaped without injury."

"It has no eyes," said Tar-gash. "How could it see to fly?"

"It was not alive," replied Tarzan.

"I heard it growl," said the Sagoth; nor was he ever convinced
that the thing was not some strange form of living creature.

They had covered but a short distance along the trail made by
Gridley and Jana, after they had left the aeroplane, when they came
upon the carcass of a huge pteranodon. Its head was crushed and
battered and almost severed from its body and a splinter of smooth
wood projected from its skull—a splinter that Tarzan
recognized as a fragment of an aeroplane propeller—and
instantly he knew the cause of Gridley's crash.

Half a mile further on the three discovered further evidence,
some of it quite startling. An opened parachute lay stretched upon
the ground where it had fallen and at short distances from it lay
the bodies of four hyaenodons and two hairy men.

An examination of the bodies revealed the fact that both of the
men and two of the hyaenodons had died from bullet wounds.
Everywhere upon the trampled turf appeared the imprints of the
small sandals of Jason's companion. It was evident to the keen eyes
of Tarzan that two other men, both natives, had taken part in the
battle which had been waged here. That they were of the same tribe
as the two that had fallen was evidenced by the imprints of their
sandals, which were of identical make, while those of Tarzan's
companion differed materially from all the others.

As he circled about, searching for further evidence, he saw that
the two men who had escaped had run rapidly for some distance
toward the mouth of a large canyon, and that, apparently following
their retreat, Jason and his companion had set out in search of the
plane. Later they had returned to the scene of the battle, and when
they had departed they also had gone toward the mountains, but
along a line considerably to the right of the trail made by the
fleeing natives.

Thoar, too, was much interested in the various tracks that the
participants in the battle by the parachute had left, but he said
nothing until after Tarzan had completed his investigation.

"There were four men and either a woman or a youth here with my
friend," said Tarzan.

"Four of them were low countrymen from Pheli," said Thoar, "and
the other was a woman of Zoram."

"How do you know?" asked Tarzan, who was always anxious to add
to his store of woodcraft.

"The low country sandals are never shaped to the foot as closely
as are those of the mountain tribes," replied Thoar, "and the soles
are much thinner, being made usually of the hides of the thag,
which is tough enough for people who do not walk often upon
anything but soft grasses or in soggy marshland. The sandals of the
mountain tribes are soled with the thick hide of Maj, the cousin of
Tandor. If you will look at the spoor you will see that they are
not worn at all, while there are holes in the sandals of these dead
men of Pheli."

"Are we near Zoram?" asked Tarzan.

"No," replied Thoar. "It lies across the highest range ahead of
us."

"When we first met, Thoar, you told me that you were from
Zoram."

"Yes, that is my country," replied Thoar.

"Then, perhaps, this woman is someone whom you know?"

"She is my sister," replied Thoar.

Tarzan of the Apes looked at him in surprise. "How do you know?"
he demanded.

"I found an imprint where there was no turf, only soft earth,
and there the spoor was so distinct that I could recognize the
sandals as hers. So familiar with her work am I that I could
recognize the stitching alone, where the sole is joined to the
upper part of the sandal, and in addition there are the notches,
which indicate the tribe. The people of Zoram have three notches in
the underside of the sole at the toe of the left sandal."

"What was your sister doing so far from her own country and how
is it that she is with my friend?"

"It is quite plain," replied Thoar. "These men of Pheli sought
to capture her. One of them wanted her for his mate, but she eluded
them and they pursued her across the Mountains of the Thipdars and
down into this valley, where she was set upon by jaloks. The man
from your country came and killed the jaloks and two of the
Phelians and drove the other two away. It is evident that my sister
could not escape him, and he captured her."

Tarzan of the Apes smiled. "The spoor does not indicate that she
ever made any effort to escape him," he said.

Thoar scratched his head. "That is true," he replied, "and I
cannot understand it, for the women of my tribe do not care to mate
with the men of other tribes and I know that Jana, my sister, would
rather die than mate outside the Mountains of the Thipdars. Many
times has she said so and Jana is not given to idle talk."

"My friend would not take her by force," said Tarzan. "If she
has gone with him, she has gone with him willingly. And I think
that when we find them you will discover that he is simply
accompanying her back to Zoram, for he is the sort of man who would
not permit a woman to go alone and unprotected."

"We shall see," said Thoar, "but if he has taken Jana against
her wishes, he must die."

As Tarzan, Tar-gash and Thoar followed the spoor of Jason and
Jana a disheartened company of men rounded the end of the great
Mountains of the Thipdars, fifty miles to the east of them, and
entered the Gyor Cors, or great Plains of the Gyors.

The party consisted of ten black warriors and a white man, and,
doubtless, never in the history of mankind had eleven men been more
completely and hopelessly lost than these.

Muviro and his warriors, than whom no better trackers ever
lived, were totally bewildered by their inability even to
back-track successfully.

The stampeding of the maddened beasts, from which they had
barely escaped with their lives and then only by what appeared
nothing short of a miracle, had so obliterated all signs of the
party's former spoor that though they were all confident that they
had gone but a short distance from the clearing, into which the
beasts had been herded by the tarags, they had never again been
able to locate the clearing, and now they were wandering hopelessly
and, in accordance with Von Horst's plans, keeping as much in the
open as possible in the hope that the cruising O-220 might thus
discover them, for Von Horst was positive that eventually his
companions would undertake a search for them.

Aboard the O-220 the grave fear that had been entertained for
the safety of the thirteen missing members of the ship's company
had developed into a conviction of disaster when Gridley failed to
return within the limit of the time that he might reasonably be
able to keep the scout plane in the air.

Then it was that Zuppner had sent Dorf out with another
searching party, but at the end of seventy hours they had returned
to report absolute failure. They had followed the trail to a
clearing where jackals fed upon rotting carrion, but beyond this
there was no sign of spoor to suggest in what direction their
fellows had wandered.

Going and coming they had been beset by savage beasts and so
ruthless and determined had been the attacks of the giant tarags
that Dorf reported to Zuppner that he was confident that all of the
missing members of the party must by this time have been destroyed
by these great cats.

"Until we have proof of that, we must not give up hope," replied
Zuppner, "nor may we relinquish our efforts to find them, whether
dead or alive, and that we cannot do by remaining here."

There was nothing now to delay the start. While the motors were
warming up, the anchor was drawn in and the air expelled from the
lower vacuum tanks. As the giant ship rose from the ground Robert
Jones jotted down a brief note in a greasy memorandum book: "We
sailed from here at noon."

* * * * *

WHEN Skruk and his companion had left the field to
the victorious Jason, the latter had returned his six-gun to its
holster and faced the girl. "Well," he inquired, "what now?"

She shook her head. "I cannot understand you," she said. "You do
not speak the language of gilaks."

Jason scratched his head. "That being the case," he said, "and
as it is evident that we are never going to get anywhere on
conversation which neither one of us understands, I am going to
have a look around for my ship, in the meantime, praying to all the
gods that my thirty-thirty and ammunition are safe. It's a cinch
that she did not burn for she must have fallen close by and I could
have seen the smoke."

Jana listened attentively and shook her head.

"Come on," said Jason, and started off in the direction that he
thought the ship might lie.

"No, not that way," exclaimed Jana, and running forward she
seized his arm and tried to stop him, pointing back to the tall
peaks of the Mountains of the Thipdars, where Zoram lay.

Jason essayed the difficult feat of explaining in a weird sign
language of his own invention that he was looking for an aeroplane
that had crashed somewhere in the vicinity, but the conviction soon
claimed him that that would be a very difficult thing to accomplish
even if the person to whom he was trying to convey the idea knew
what an aeroplane was, and so he ended up by grinning good
naturedly, and, seizing the girl by the hand, gently leading her in
the direction he wished to go.

Again that charming smile disarmed The Red Flower of Zoram and
though she knew that this stranger was leading her away from the
caverns of her people, yet she followed docilely, though her brow
was puckered in perplexity as she tried to understand why she was
not afraid, or why she was willing to go with this stranger, who
evidently was not even a gilak, since he could not speak the
language of men.

A half hour's search was rewarded by the discovery of the wreck
of the plane, which had suffered far less damage than Jason had
expected.

It was evident that in its plunge to earth it must have
straightened out and glided to a landing. Of course, it was wrecked
beyond repair, even if there had been any facilities for repairs,
but it had not burned and Jason recovered his thirty-thirty and all
his ammunition.

Jana was intensely interested in the plane and examined every
portion of it minutely. Never in her life had she wished so much to
ask questions, for never in her life had she seen anything that had
so aroused her wonder. And here was the one person in all the world
who could answer her questions, but she could not make him
understand one of them. For a moment she almost hated him, and then
he smiled at her and pressed her hand, and she forgave him and
smiled back.

"And now," said Jason, "where do we go from here? As far as I am
concerned one place is as good as another."

Being perfectly well aware that he was hopelessly lost, Jason
Gridley felt that the only chance he had of being reunited with his
companions lay in the possibility that the O-220 might chance to
cruise over the very locality where he happened to be, and no
matter whither he might wander, whether north or south or east or
west, that chance was as slender in one direction as another, and,
conversely, equally good. In an hour the O-220 would cover a
distance fully as great as he could travel in several days of outer
earthly time. And so even if he chanced to be moving in a direction
that led away from the ship's first anchorage, he could never go so
far that it might not easily and quickly overtake him, if its
search should chance to lead it in his direction. Therefore he
turned questioningly to the girl, pointing first in one direction,
and then in another, while he looked inquiringly at her, attempting
thus to convey to her the idea that he was ready and willing to go
in any direction she chose, and Jana, sensing his meaning, pointed
toward the lofty Mountains of the Thipdars.

"There," she said, "lies Zoram, the land of my people."

"Your logic is unassailable," said Jason, "and I only wish I
could understand what you are saying, for I am sure that anyone
with such beautiful teeth could never be uninteresting."

Jana did not wait to discuss the matter, but started forthwith
for Zoram and beside her walked Jason Gridley of California.

Jana's active mind had been working rapidly and she had come to
the conclusion that she could not for long endure the constantly
increasing pressure of unsatisfied curiosity. She must find some
means of communicating with this interesting stranger and to the
accomplishment of this end she could conceive of no better plan
than teaching the man her language. But how to commence! Never in
her experience or that of her people had the necessity arisen for
teaching a language. Previously she had not dreamed of the
existence of such a means. If you can feature such a state, which
is doubtful, you must concede to this primitive girl of the stone
age a high degree of intelligence. This was no accidental blowing
off of the lid of the teapot upon which might be built a theory. It
required, as a matter of fact, a greater reasoning ability. Give a
steam engine to a man who had never heard of steam and ask him to
make it go—Jana's problem was almost as difficult. But the
magnitude of the reward spurred her on, for what will one not do to
have one's curiosity satisfied, especially if one happens to be a
young and beautiful girl and the object of one's curiosity an
exceptionally handsome young man. Skirts may change, but human
nature never.

And so The Red Flower of Zoram pointed at herself with a slim,
brown forefinger and said, "Jana." She repeated this several times
and then she pointed at Jason, raising her eyebrows in
interrogation.

"Jason," he said, for there was no misunderstanding her meaning.
And so the slow, laborious task began as the two trudged upward
toward the foothills of the Mountains of the Thipdars.

There lay before them a long, hard climb to the higher
altitudes, but there was water in abundance in the tumbling brooks,
dropping down the hillside, and Jana knew the edible plants, and
nuts, and fruits which grew in riotous profusion in many a dark,
deep ravine, and there was game in plenty to be brought down, when
they needed meat, by Jason's thirty-thirty.

As they proceeded in their quest for Zoram, Jason found greater
opportunity to study his companion and he came to the conclusion
that nature had attained the pinnacle of physical perfection with
the production of this little savage. Every line and curve of that
lithe, brown body sang of symmetry, for The Red Flower of Zoram was
a living poem of beauty. If he had thought that her teeth were
beautiful he was forced to admit that they held no advantage in
that respect over her eyes, her nose or any other of her features.
And when she fell to with her crude stone knife and helped him skin
a kill and prepare the meat for cooking, when he saw the deftness
and celerity with which she made fire with the simplest and most
primitive of utensils, when he witnessed the almost uncanny
certitude with which she located nests of eggs and edible fruit and
vegetables, he was conscious that her perfections were not alone
physical and he became more than ever anxious to acquire a
sufficient understanding of her tongue to be able to communicate
with her, though he realized that he might doubtless suffer a rude
awakening and disillusionment when, through an understanding of her
language, he might be able to judge the limitations of her
mind.

When Jana was tired she went beneath a tree, and, making a bed
of grasses, curled up and fell asleep immediately, and, while she
slept, Gridley watched, for the dangers of this primitive land were
numerous and constant. Fully as often as he shot for food he shot
to protect them from some terrible beast, until the encounters
became as prosaic and commonplace as does the constant eluding of
death by pedestrians at congested traffic corners in cities of the
outer crust.

When Jason felt the need of sleep, Jana watched and sometimes
they merely rested without sleeping, usually beneath a tree for
there they found the greatest protection from their greatest
danger, the fierce and voracious thipdars from which the mountains
took their name. These hideous, flying reptiles were a constant
menace, but so thoroughly had nature developed a defense against
them that the girl could hear their wings at a greater distance
than either of them could see the creatures.

Jason had no means for determining how far they had traveled, or
how long they had been upon their way, but he was sure that
considerable outer earthly time must have elapsed since he had met
the girl, when they came to a seemingly insurmountable obstacle,
for already he had made considerable progress toward mastering her
tongue and they were exchanging short sentences, much to Jana's
delight, her merry laughter, often marking one of Jason's more
flagrant errors in pronunciation or construction.

And now they had come to a deep chasm with overhanging walls
that not even Jana could negotiate. To Jason it resembled a
stupendous fault that might have been caused by the subsidence of
the mountain range for it paralleled the main axis of the range.
And if this were true he knew that it might extend for hundreds of
miles, effectually barring the way across the mountains by the
route they were following.

For a long time Jana sought a means of descent into the crevice.
She did not want to turn to the left as that route might lead her
eventually back to the canyon that she had descended when pursued
by Skruk and his fellows and she well knew how almost unscalable
were the perpendicular sides of this terrific gorge. Another thing,
perhaps, which decided her against the left hand route was the
possibility that in that direction they might again come in contact
with the Phelians, and so she led Jason toward the right and always
she searched for a way to the bottom of the rift.

Jason realized that they were consuming a great deal of time in
trying to cross, but he became also aware of the fact that time
meant nothing in timeless Pellucidar. It was never a factor with
which to reckon for the excellent reason that it did not exist, and
when he gave the matter thought he was conscious of a mild surprise
that he, who had been always a slave of time, so easily and
naturally embraced the irresponsible existence of Pellucidar. It
was not only the fact that time itself seemed not to matter but
that the absence of this greatest of all task masters singularly
affected one's outlook upon every other consideration of existence.
Without time there appeared to be no accountability for one's acts
since it is to the future that the slaves of time have learned to
look for their reward or punishment. Where there is no time, there
is no future. Jason Gridley found himself affected much as Tarzan
had been in that the sense of his responsibility for the welfare of
his fellows seemed deadened. What had happened to them had happened
and no act of his could alter it. They were not there with him and
so he could not be of assistance to them, and as it was difficult
to visualize the future beneath an eternal noonday sun how might
one plan ahead for others or for himself?

Jason Gridley gave up the riddle with a shake of his head and
found solace in contemplation of the profile of The Red Flower of
Zoram.

"Why do you look at me so much?" demanded the girl, for by now
they could make themselves understood to one another.

Jason Gridley flushed slightly and looked quickly away. Her
question had been very abrupt and surprising and for the first time
he realized that he had been looking at her a great deal. He
started to answer, hesitated and stopped. Why had he been looking
at her so much? It seemed silly to say that it was because she was
beautiful.

"Why do you not say it, Jason?" she inquired.

"Say what?" he demanded.

"Say the thing that is in your eyes when you look at me," she
replied.

Gridley looked at her in astonishment. No one but an imbecile
could have misunderstood her meaning, and Jason Gridley was no
imbecile.

Could it be possible that he had been looking at her that way?
Had he gone stark mad that he was even subconsciously entertaining
such thoughts of this little barbarian who seized her meat in both
hands and tore pieces from it with her flashing, white teeth, who
went almost as naked as the beasts of the field and with all their
unconsciousness of modesty? Could it be that his eyes had told this
untutored savage that he was harboring thoughts of love for her?
The artificialities of a thousand years of civilization rose up in
horror against such a thought.

Upon the screen of his memory there was flashed a picture of the
haughty Cynthia Furnois of Hollywood, daughter of the famous
director, Abelard Furnois, née Abe Fink. He recalled Cynthia's
meticulous observance of the minutest details of social usages and
the studied perfection of her deportment that had sometimes awed
him. He saw, too, the aristocratic features of Barbara Green,
daughter of old John Green, the Los Angeles realtor, from Texas. It
is true that old John was no purist and that his total disregard of
the social precedence of forks often shocked the finer
sensibilities that Mrs. Green and Barbara had laboriously achieved
in the universities of Montmartre and Coconut Grove, but Barbara
had had two years at Marlborough and knew her suffixes and her
hardware.

Of course Cynthia was a rotten little snob, not only on the
surface but to the bottom of her shallow, selfish soul, while
Barbara's snobbishness, he felt, was purely artificial, the result
of mistaking for the genuine the silly artificialities and
affectations of the almost celebrities and sudden rich that infest
the public places of Hollywood.

But nevertheless these two did, after a fashion, reflect the
social environment to which he was accustomed and as he tried to
answer Jana's question he could not but picture her seated at
dinner with a company made up of such as these. Of course, Jana was
a bully companion upon an adventure such as that in which they were
engaged, but modern man cannot go adventuring forever in the Stone
Age. If his eyes had carried any other message to Jana than that of
friendly comradeship he felt sorry, for he realized that in
fairness to her, as well as to himself, there could never be
anything more than this between them.

As Jason hesitated for a reply, the eyes of The Red Flower of
Zoram searched his soul and slowly the half expectant smile faded
from her lips. Perhaps she was a savage little barbarian of the
Stone Age, but she was no fool and she was a woman.

Slowly she drew her slender figure erect as she turned away from
him and started back along the rim of the rift toward the great
gorge through which she had descended from the higher peaks when
Skruk and his fellows had been pursuing her.

"Jana," he exclaimed, "don't be angry. Where are you going?"

She stopped and with her haughty little chin in air turned a
withering look back upon him across a perfect shoulder. "Go your
way, jalok," she said, "and Jana will go hers."

HEAVY clouds formed about the lofty peaks of the
Mountains of the Thipdars—black, angry clouds that rolled
down the northern slopes, spreading far to east and west.

"The waters have come again," said Thoar. "They are falling upon
Zoram. Soon they will fall here too."

It looked very dark up there above them and presently the clouds
swept out across the sky, blotting out the noonday sun.

It was a new landscape upon which Tarzan looked—a sullen,
bleak and forbidding landscape. It was the first time that he had
seen Pellucidar in shadow and he did not like it. The effect of the
change was strikingly apparent in Thoar and Tar-gash. They seemed
depressed, almost fearful. Nor was it man alone that was so
strangely affected by the blotting out of the eternal sunlight, for
presently from the upper reaches of the mountains the lower animals
came, pursuing the sunlight. That they, too, were strangely
affected and filled with terror was evidenced by the fact that the
carnivores and their prey trotted side by side and that none of
them paid any attention to the three men.

"Why do they not attack us, Thoar?" asked Tarzan.

"They know that the water is about to fall," he replied, "and
they are afraid of the falling water. They forget their hunger and
their quarrels as they seek to escape the common terror."

"Is the danger so great then?" asked the ape-man.

"Not if we remain upon high ground," replied Thoar. "Sometimes
the gullies and ravines fill with water in an instant, but the only
danger upon the high land is from the burning spears that are
hurled from the black clouds. But if we stay in the open, even
these are not dangerous for, as a rule, they are aimed at trees. Do
not go beneath a tree while the clouds are hurling their spears of
fire."

As the clouds shut off the sunlight, the air became suddenly
cold. A raw wind swept down from above and the three men shivered
in their nakedness.

"Gather wood," said Tarzan. "We shall build a fire for warmth."
And so the three gathered firewood and Tarzan made fire and they
sat about it, warming their naked hides; while upon either side of
them the brutes passed on their way down toward the sunlight.

The rain came. It did not fall in drops, but in great enveloping
blankets that seemed to beat them down and smother them. Inches
deep it rolled down the mountainside, filling the depressions and
the gullies, turning the canyons into raging torrents.

The wind lashed the falling water into a blinding maelstrom that
the eye could not pierce a dozen feet. Terrified animals stampeded
blindly, constituting themselves the greatest menace of the storm.
The lightning flashed and the thunder roared, and the beasts
progressed from panic to an insanity of fear.

Above the roar of the thunder and the howling of the wind rose
the piercing shrieks and screams of the monsters of another day,
and in the air above flapped shrieking reptiles fighting toward the
sunlight against the pounding wrath of the elements. Giant
pteranodons, beaten to the ground, staggered uncertainly upon legs
unaccustomed to the task, and through it all the three beast-men
huddled at the spot where their fire had been, though not even an
ash remained.

It seemed to Tarzan that the storm lasted a great while, but
like the others he was inured to the hardships and discomforts of
primitive life. Where a civilized man might have railed against
fate and cursed the elements, the three beast-men sat in stoic
silence, their backs hunched against the storm, for each knew that
it would not last forever and each knew that there was nothing he
could say or do to lessen its duration or abate its fury.

Had it not been for the example set by Tarzan and Thoar,
Tar-gash would have fled toward the sunlight with the other beasts,
not that he was more fearful than they, but that he was influenced
more by instinct than by reason. But where they stayed, he was
content to stay, and so he squatted there with them, in dumb
misery, waiting for the sun to come again.

The rain lessened; the howling wind died down; the clouds passed
on and the sun burst forth upon a steaming world. The three
beast-men arose and shook themselves.

"I am hungry," said Tarzan.

Thoar pointed about them to where lay the bodies of lesser
beasts that had been crushed in the mad stampede for safety.

Now even Thoar was compelled to eat his meat raw, for there was
no dry wood wherewith to start a fire, but to Tarzan and Tar-gash
this was no hardship. As Tarzan ate, the suggestion of a smile
smoldered in his eyes. He was recalling a fussy old nobleman with
whom he had once dined at a London club and who had almost suffered
a stroke of apoplexy because his bird had been slightly
underdone.

When the three had filled their bellies, they arose to continue
their search for Jana and Jason, only to discover that the
torrential rain had effectually erased every vestige of the spoor
that they had been following.

"We cannot pick up their trail again," said Thoar, "until we
reach the point where they continued on again after the waters
ceased to fall. To the left is a deep canyon, whose walls are
difficult to scale. In front of us is a fissure, which extends
along the base of the mountains for a considerable distance in both
directions. But if we go to the right we shall find a place where
we can descend into it and cross it. This is the way that they
should have gone. Perhaps there we shall pick up their trail
again." But though they continued on and crossed the fissure and
clambered upward toward the higher peaks, they found no sign that
Jana or Jason had come this way.

"Perhaps they reached your country by another route," suggested
Tarzan.

"Perhaps," said Thoar. "Let us continue on to Zoram. There is
nothing else that we can do. There we can gather the men of my
tribe and search the mountains for them."

In the ascent toward the summit Thoar sometimes followed trails
that for countless ages the rough pads of the carnivores had
followed, or again he led them over trackless wastes of granite,
taking such perilous chances along dizzy heights that Tarzan was
astonished that any of them came through alive.

Upon a bleak summit they had robbed a thipdar's nest of its eggs
and the three were eating when Thoar became suddenly alert and
listening. To the ears of the ape-man came faintly a sound that
resembled the dismal flapping of distant wings.

"A thipdar," said Thoar, "and there is no shelter for us!"

"There are three of us," said Tarzan. "What have we to
fear?"

"You do not know them," said Thoar. "They are hard to kill and
they are never defeated until they are killed. Their brains are
very small. Sometimes when we have cut them open it has been
difficult to find the brain at all, and having no brain they have
no fear of anything, not even death, for they cannot know what
death is, nor do they seem to be affected much by pain. It merely
angers them, making them more terrible. Perhaps we can kill it, but
I wish that there were a tree."

"How do you know that it will attack us?'' asked Tarzan.

"It is coming in this direction. It cannot help but see us, and
whatever living thing they see they attack."

"Have you ever been attacked by one?" asked Tarzan.

"Yes," replied Thoar, "but only when there was no tree or cave.
The men of Zoram are not ashamed to admit that they fear the mighty
thipdars."

"But if you have killed them in the past, why may we not kill
this one?" demanded the ape-man.

"We may," replied Thoar, "but I have never chanced to have an
encounter with one, except when there were a number of my tribesmen
with me. The lone hunter who goes forth and never returns is our
reason for fearing the thipdar. Even when there are many of us to
fight them, always there are some killed and many injured."

"It comes," said Tar-gash, pointing.

"It comes," said Thoar, grasping his spear more firmly.

Down to their ears came a sound resembling the escaping of steam
through a petcock.

"It has seen us," said Thoar.

Tarzan laid his spear upon the ground at his feet, plucked a
handful of arrows from his quiver and fitted one to his bow.
Tar-gash swung his club slowly to and fro and growled.

On came the giant reptile, the dismal flapping of its wings
punctuated occasionally by a loud and angry hiss. The three men
waited, poised, ready, expectant.

There were no preliminaries. The mighty pteranodon drove
straight toward them. Tarzan loosed a bolt which drove true to its
mark, burying its head in the breast of the pterodactyl. The hiss
became a scream of anger and then in rapid succession three more
arrows buried themselves in the creature's flesh.

That this was a warmer reception than it had expected was
evidenced by the fact that it rose suddenly upward, skimmed above
their heads as though to abandon the attack, and then, quite
suddenly and with a speed incomprehensible in a creature of its
tremendous size, wheeled like a sparrow hawk and dove straight at
Tarzan's back.

So quickly did the creature strike that there could be no
defense. The ape-man felt sharp talons half buried in his naked
flesh and simultaneously he was lifted from the ground.

Thoar raised his spear and Tar-gash swung his cudgel, but
neither dared strike for fear of wounding their comrade. And so
they were forced to stand there futilely inactive and watch the
monster bear Tarzan of the Apes away across the tops of the
Mountains of the Thipdars.

In silence they stood watching until the creature passed out of
sight beyond the summit of a distant peak, the body of the ape-man
still dangling in its talons. Then Tar-gash turned and looked at
Thoar.

"Tarzan is dead," said the Sagoth. Thoar of Zoram nodded sadly.
Without another word Tar-gash turned and started down toward the
valley from which they had ascended. The only bond that had united
these two hereditary enemies had parted, and Tar-gash was going his
way back to the stamping grounds of his tribe.

For a moment Thoar watched him, and then, with a shrug of his
shoulders, he turned his face toward Zoram.

As the pteranodon bore him off across the granite peaks, Tarzan
hung limply in its clutches, realizing that if Fate held in store
for him any hope of escape it could not come in midair and if he
were to struggle against his adversary, or seek to battle with it,
death upon the jagged rocks below would be the barren reward of
success. His one hope lay in retaining consciousness and the power
to fight when the creature came to the ground with him. He knew
that there were birds of prey that kill their victims by dropping
them from great heights, but he hoped that the pteranodons of
Pellucidar had never acquired this disconcerting habit.

As he watched the panorama of mountain peaks passing below him,
he realized that he was being carried a considerable distance from
the spot at which he had been seized—perhaps twenty
miles.

The flight at last carried them across a frightful gorge and a
short distance beyond the pteranodon circled a lofty granite peak,
toward the summit of which it slowly dropped, and there, below him,
Tarzan of the Apes saw a nest of small thipdars, eagerly awaiting
with wide distended jaws the flesh that their savage parent was
bringing to them.

The nest rested upon the summit of a lofty granite spire, the
entire area of the summit encompassing but a few square yards, the
walls dropping perpendicularly hundreds of feet to the rough
granite of the lofty peak the spire surmounted. It was, indeed, a
precarious place at which to stage a battle for life.

Cautiously, Tarzan of the Apes drew his keen hunting knife from
its sheath. Slowly his left hand crept upward against his body and
passed over his left shoulder until his fingers touched the
thipdar's leg. Cautiously, his fingers encircled the scaly,
birdlike ankle just above the claws.

The reptile was descending slowly toward its nest. The hideous
demons below were screeching and hissing in anticipation. Tarzan's
feet were almost in their jaws when he struck suddenly upward with
his blade at the breast of the thipdar.

It was no random thrust. What slender chance for life the
ape-man had depended upon the accuracy and the strength of that
single blow. The giant pteranodon emitted a shrill scream,
stiffened convulsively in mid-air and, as it collapsed, relaxed its
hold upon its prey, dropping the ape-man into the nest among the
gaping jaws of its frightful brood.

Fortunately for Tarzan there were but three of them and they
were still very young, though their teeth were sharp and their jaws
strong.

Striking quickly to right and left with his blade he scrambled
from the nest with only a few minor cuts and scratches upon his
legs.

Lying partially over the edge of the spire was the body of the
dead thipdar. Tarzan gave it a final shove and watched it as it
fell three hundred feet to the rocks below. Then he turned his
attention to a survey of his surroundings, but almost hopelessly
since the view that he had obtained of the spire, while the thipdar
was circling it, assured him that there was little or no likelihood
that he could find any means of descent.

The young thipdars were screaming and hissing, but they had made
no move to leave their nest as Tarzan started a close investigation
of the granite spire upon the lofty summit of which it seemed
likely that he would terminate his adventurous career.

Lying flat upon his belly he looked over the edge, and thus
moving slowly around the periphery of the lofty aerie he examined
the walls of the spire with minute attention to every detail.

Again and again he crept around the edge until he had catalogued
within his memory every projection and crevice and possible
handhold that he could see from above.

Several times he returned to one point and then he removed the
coils of his grass rope from about his shoulders and holding the
two ends in one hand, lowered the loop over the edge of the spire.
Carefully he noted the distance that it descended from the summit
and what a pitiful span it seemed— that paltry twenty-five
feet against the three hundred that marked the distance from base
to apex.

Releasing one end of the rope, he let that fall to its full
length, and when he saw where the lower end touched the granite
wall he was satisfied that he could descend at least that far, and
below that another twenty-five feet. But it was difficult to
measure distances below that point and from there on he must leave
everything to chance.

Drawing the rope up again he looped the center of it about a
projecting bit of granite, permitting the ends to fall over the
edge of the cliff. Then he seized both strands of the rope tightly
in one hand and lowered himself over the edge. Twenty feet below
was a projection that gave him precarious foothold and a little
crevice into which he could insert the fingers of his left hand.
Almost directly before his face was the top of a buttress-like
projection and below him he knew that there were many more similar
to it. It was upon these that he had based his slender hope of
success.

Gingerly he pulled upon one strand of the rope with his right
hand. So slender was his footing upon the rocky escarpment that he
did not dare draw the rope more than a few inches at a time lest
the motion throw him off his balance. Little by little he drew it
in until the upper end passed around the projection over which the
rope had been looped at the summit and fell upon him. And as it
descended he held his breath for fear that even this slight weight
might topple him to the jagged rocks below.

And now came the slow process of drawing the rope unaided
through one hand, fingering it slowly an inch at a time until the
center was in his grasp. This he looped over the top of the
projection in front of him, seating it as securely as he could, and
then he grasped both strands once more in his right hand and was
ready to descend another twenty-five feet.

This stage of the descent was the most appalling of all, since
the rope was barely seated upon a shelving protuberance from which
he was aware it might slip at any instant. And so it was with a
sense of unspeakable relief that he again found foothold near the
end of the frail strands that were supporting him.

At this point the surface of the spire became much rougher. It
was broken by fissures and horizontal cracks that had not been
visible from above, with the result that compared with the first
fifty feet the descent from here to the base was a miracle of ease,
and it was not long before Tarzan stood again squarely upon his two
feet and level ground. And now for the first time he had an
opportunity to take stock of his injuries.

His legs were scratched and cut by the teeth and talons of the
young thipdars, but these wounds were as nothing to those left by
the talons of the adult reptile upon his back and shoulders. He
could feel the deep wounds, but he could not see them, nor the
clotted blood that had dried upon his brown skin.

The wounds pained and his muscles were stiff and sore, but his
only fear lay in the possibility of blood poisoning and that did
not greatly worry the ape-man, who had been repeatedly torn and
mauled by carnivores since childhood.

A brief survey of his position showed him that it would be
practically impossible for him to recross the stupendous gorge that
yawned between him and the point at which he had been so ruthlessly
torn from his companions. And with that discovery came the
realization that there was little or no likelihood that the people
toward which Tar-gash had been attempting to guide him could be the
members of the O-220 expedition. Therefore it seemed useless to
attempt the seemingly impossible feat of finding Thoar and Tar-gash
again among this maze of stupendous peaks, gorges and ravines. And
so he determined merely to seek a way out of the mountains and back
to the forests and plains that held a greater allure for him than
did the rough and craggy contours of inhospitable hills. And to the
accomplishment of this end he decided to follow the line of least
resistance, seeking always the easiest avenues of descent.

Below him, in various directions, he could see the timber line
and toward this he hastened to make his way.

As he descended the way became easier, though on several
occasions he was again compelled to resort to his rope to lower
himself from one level to another. Then the steep crags gave place
to leveler land upon the shoulders of the mighty range and here,
where earth could find lodgment, vegetation commenced. Grasses and
shrubs, at first, then stunted trees and finally what was almost a
forest, and here he came upon a trail.

It was a trail that offered infinite variety. For a while it
wound through a forest and then climbed to a ledge of rock that
projected from the face of a cliff and overhung a stupendous
canyon.

He could not see the trail far ahead for it was continually
rounding the shoulders of jutting crags.

As he moved along it, sure-footed, silent, alert, Tarzan of the
Apes became aware that somewhere ahead of him other feet were
treading probably the same trail.

What wind there was was eddying up from the canyon below and
carrying the scent spoor of the creature ahead of him as well as
his own up toward the mountain top, so that it was unlikely that
either might apprehend the presence of the other by scent, but
there was something in the sound of the footsteps that even at a
distance assured Tarzan that they were not made by man, and it was
evident too that they were going in the same direction as he for
they were not growing rapidly more distinct, but very gradually as
though he was slowly overhauling the author of them.

The trail was narrow and only occasionally, where it crossed
some ravine or shallow gully, was there a place where one might
either descend or ascend from it.

To meet a savage beast upon it, therefore, might prove, to say
the least, embarrassing but Tarzan had elected to go this way and
he was not in the habit of turning back whatever obstacles in the
form of man or beast might bar his way. And, too, he had the
advantage over the creature ahead of him whatever it might be,
since he was coming upon it from behind and was quite sure that it
had no knowledge of his presence, for Tarzan well knew that no
creature could move with greater silence than he, when he elected
to do so, and now he passed along that trail as noiselessly as the
shadow of a shadow.

Curiosity caused him to increase his speed that he might learn
the nature of the thing ahead, and as he did so and the sound of
its footsteps increased in volume, he knew that he was stalking
some heavy, four-footed beast with padded feet—that much he
could tell, but beyond that he had no idea of the identity of the
thing, nor did the winding trail at any time reveal it to his view.
Thus the silent stalker pursued his way until he knew that he was
but a short distance behind his quarry when there suddenly broke
upon his ears the horrid snarling and growling of an enraged beast
just ahead of him.

There was something in the tone of that awful voice that
increased the ape-man's curiosity. He guessed from the volume of
the sound that it must come from the throat of a tremendous beast,
for the very hills seemed to shake to the thunder of its roars.

Guessing that it was attacking or was about to attack some other
creature, and spurred, perhaps, entirely by curiosity, Tarzan
hastened forward at a brisk trot, and as he rounded the shoulder of
a buttressed crag his eyes took in a scene that galvanized him into
instant action.

A hundred feet ahead the trail ended at the mouth of a great
cave, and in the entrance to the cave stood a boy—a lithe,
handsome youth of ten or twelve—while between the boy and
Tarzan a huge cave bear was advancing angrily upon the former.

The boy saw Tarzan and at the first glance his eyes lighted with
hope, but an instant later, evidently recognizing that the newcomer
was not of his own tribe, the expression of hopelessness that had
been there before returned to his face, but he stood his ground
bravely, his spear and his crude stone knife ready.

The scene before the ape-man told its own story. The bear,
returning to its cave, had unexpectedly discovered the youth
emerging from it, while the latter, doubtless equally surprised,
found himself cornered with no avenue of escape open to him.

By the primitive jungle laws that had guided his youth, Tarzan
of the Apes was under no responsibility to assume the dangerous
role of savior, but there had always burned within his breast the
flame of chivalry, bequeathed him by his English parents, that more
often than not found him jeopardizing his own life in the interests
of others. This child of a nameless tribe in an unknown world might
hold no claim upon the sympathy of a savage beast or even of savage
men who were not of his tribe. And perhaps Tarzan of the Apes would
not have admitted that the youth had any claim upon him, yet in
reality he exercised a vast power over the ape-man—a power
that lay solely in the fact that he was a child and that he was
helpless.

One may analyze the deeds of a man of action and speculate upon
them, whereas the man himself does not appear to do so at
all—he merely acts; and thus it was with Tarzan of the Apes.
He saw an emergency confronting him and he was ready to meet it,
for since the moment that he had known that there was a beast upon
the trail ahead of him he had had his weapons in readiness, years
of experience with primitive men and savage beasts having taught
him the value of preparedness.

His grass rope was looped in the hollow of his left arm and in
the fingers of his left hand were grasped his spear, his bow and
three extra arrows, while a fourth arrow was ready in his right
hand.

One glance at the beast ahead of him had convinced him that only
by a combination of skill and rare luck could he hope to destroy
this titanic monster with the relatively puny weapons with which he
was armed, but he might at least divert its attention from the lad
and by harassing it draw it away until the boy could find some
means of escape. And so it was that within the very instant that
his eyes took in the picture his bow twanged and a heavy arrow sank
deeply into the back of the bear close to its spine, and at the
same time Tarzan voiced a savage cry intended to apprise the beast
of an enemy in its rear.

Maddened by the pain and surprised by the voice behind it, the
creature evidently associated the two, instantly whirling about on
the narrow ledge.

Tarzan's first impression was that in all his life he had never
gazed upon such a picture of savage bestial rage as was depicted
upon the snarling countenance of the mighty cave bear as its fiery
eyes fell upon the author of its hurt.

In quick succession three arrows sank into its chest as it
charged, howling, down upon the ape-man.

For an instant longer Tarzan held his ground. Poising his heavy
spear he carried his spear hand far back behind his right shoulder,
and then with all the force of those giant muscles, backed by the
weight of his great body, he launched the weapon.

At the instant that it left his hand the bear was almost upon
him and he did not wait to note the effect of his throw, but turned
and leaped swiftly down the trail, while close behind him the
savage growling and the ponderous footfalls of the carnivore proved
the wisdom of his strategy.

He was sure that upon this narrow, rocky ledge, if no obstacle
interposed itself, he could outdistance the bear, for only Ara, the
lightning, is swifter than Tarzan of the Apes.

There was the possibility that he might meet the bear's mate
coming up to their den, and in that event his position would be
highly critical, but that, of course, was only a remote possibility
and in the meantime he was sure that he had inflicted sufficiently
severe wounds upon the great beast to sap its strength and
eventually to prove its total undoing. That it possessed an immense
reserve of vitality was evidenced by the strength and savagery of
its pursuit. The creature seemed tireless and although Tarzan was
equally so he found fleeing from an antagonist peculiarly irksome
and to a considerable degree obnoxious to his self esteem. And so
he cast about him for some means of terminating the flight and to
that end he watched particularly the cliff walls rising above the
trail down which he sped, and at last he saw that for which he had
hoped—a jutting granite projection protruding from the cliff
about twenty-five feet above the trail.

His coiled rope was ready in his left hand, the noose in his
right, and as he came within throwing distance of the projection,
he unerringly tossed the latter about it. The bear tore down the
trail behind him. The ape-man pulled heavily once upon the end of
the rope to assure himself that it was safely caught above, and
then with the agility of Manu, the monkey, he clambered upward.

IT required no Sherlockian instinct to deduce that
Jana was angry, and Jason was not so dense as to be unaware of the
cause of her displeasure, which he attributed to natural feminine
vexation induced by the knowledge that she had been mistaken in
assuming that her charms had effected the conquest of his heart. He
judged Jana by his own imagined knowledge of feminine psychology.
He knew that she was beautiful and he knew that she knew it, too.
She had told him of the many men of Zoram who had wanted to take
her as their mate, and he had saved her from one suitor, who had
pursued her across the terrible Mountains of the Thipdars, putting
his life constantly in jeopardy to win her. He felt that it was
only natural, therefore, that Jana should place a high valuation
upon her charms and believe that any man might fall a victim to
their spell, but he saw no reason why she should be angry because
she had not succeeded in enthralling him. They had been very happy
together. He could not recall when ever before he had been for so
long a time in the company of any girl, or so enjoyed the
companionship of one of her sex. He was sorry that anything had
occurred to mar the even tenor of their friendship and he quickly
decided that the manly thing to do was to ignore her tantrum and go
on with her as he had before, until she came to her senses. Nor was
there anything else that he might do for he certainly could not
permit Jana to continue her journey to Zoram without protection. Of
course it was not very nice of her to have called him a jalok,
which he knew to be a Pellucidarian epithet of high insult, but he
would overlook that for the present and eventually she would relent
and ask his forgiveness.

And so he followed her, but he had taken scarcely a dozen steps
when she wheeled upon him like a young tiger, whipping her stone
knife from its sheath. "I told you to go your way," she cried. "I
do not want to see you again. If you follow me I shall kill
you."

"I cannot let you go on alone, Jana," he said quietly.

"The Red Flower of Zoram wants no protection from such as you,"
she replied haughtily.

"We have been such good friends, Jana," he pleaded. "Let us go
on together as we have in the past. I cannot help it if—" He
hesitated and stopped.

"I do not care that you do not love me," she said. "I hate you.
I hate you because your eyes lie. Sometimes lips lie and we are not
hurt because we have learned to expect that from lips, but when
eyes lie then the heart lies and the whole man is false. I cannot
trust you. I do not want your friendship. I want nothing more of
you. Go away."

"You do not understand, Jana," he insisted.

"I understand that if you try to follow me I will kill you," she
said.

"Then you will have to kill me," he replied, "for I shall follow
you. I cannot let you go on alone, no matter whether you hate me or
not," and as he ceased speaking he advanced toward her.

His hands at his sides, Jason Gridley walked slowly up to her as
though offering his breast as a target for her weapon. The stone
blade flashed upward. It poised a moment above her shoulder and
then The Red Flower of Zoram turned and fled along the rim of the
rift.

She ran very swiftly and was soon far ahead of Jason, who was
weighted down by clothes, heavy weapons and ammunition. He called
after her once or twice, begging her to stop, but she did not heed
him and he continued doggedly along her trail, making the best time
that he could. He felt hurt and angry, but after all the emotion
which dominated him was one of regret that their sweet friendship
had been thus wantonly blasted.

Slowly the realization was borne in upon him that he had been
very happy with Jana and that she had occupied his thoughts almost
to the exclusion of every other consideration of the past or
future. Even the memory of his lost comrades had been relegated to
the hazy oblivion of temporary forgetfulness in the presence of the
responsibility which he had assumed for the safe conduct of the
girl to her home land.

"Why, she has made a regular monkey out of me," he mused.
"Odysseus never met a more potent Circe. Nor one half so lovely,"
he added, as he regretfully recalled the charms of the little
barbarian.

And what a barbarian she had proven herself—whipping out
her stone knife and threatening to kill him. But he could not help
but smile when he realized how in the final extremity she had
proven herself so wholly feminine. With a sigh he shook his head
and plodded on after The Red Flower of Zoram.

Occasionally Jason caught a glimpse of Jana as she crossed a
ridge ahead of him and though she did not seem to be traveling as
fast as at first, yet he could not gain upon her. His mind was
constantly harassed by the fear that she might be attacked by some
savage beast and destroyed before he could come to her rescue with
his rifle. He knew that sooner or later she would have to stop and
rest and then he was hopeful of overtaking her, when he might
persuade her to forget her anger and resume their former friendly
comradeship.

But it seemed that The Red Flower of Zoram had no intention of
resting, though the American had long since reached a stage of
fatigue that momentarily threatened to force him to relinquish the
pursuit until outraged nature could recuperate. Yet he plodded on
doggedly across the rough ground, while the weight of his arms and
ammunition seemed to increase until his rifle assumed the ponderous
proportions of a field gun. Determined not to give up, he staggered
down one hill and struggled up the next, his legs seeming to move
mechanically as though they were some detached engine of torture
over which he had no control and which were bearing him
relentlessly onward, while every fiber of his being cried out for
rest.

Added to the physical torture of fatigue, were hunger and
thirst, and knowing that only thus might time be measured, he was
confident that he had covered a great distance since they had last
rested and then he topped the summit of a low rise and saw Jana
directly ahead of him.

She was standing on the edge of the rift where it opened into a
mighty gorge that descended from the mountains and it was evident
that she was undecided what course to pursue. The course which she
wished to pursue was blocked by the rift and gorge. To her left the
way led back down into the valley in a direction opposite to that
in which lay Zoram, while to retrace her steps would entail another
encounter with Jason.

She was looking over the edge of the precipice, evidently
searching for some avenue of descent when she became aware of
Jason's approach.

She wheeled upon him angrily. "Go back," she cried, "or I shall
jump."

"Please, Jana," he pleaded, "let me go with you. I shall not
annoy you. I shall not even speak to you unless you wish it, but
let me go with you to protect you from the beasts."

The girl laughed. "You protect me!" she exclaimed, her tone
caustic with sarcasm. "You do not even know the dangers which beset
the way. Without your strange spear, which spits fire and death,
you would be helpless before the attack of even one of the lesser
beasts, and in the high Mountains of the Thipdars there are beasts
so large and so terrible that they would devour you and your fire
spear in a single gulp. Go back to your own people, man of another
world; go back to the soft women of which you have told me. Only a
man may go where The Red Flower of Zoram goes."

"You half convince me," said Jason with a rueful smile, "that I
am only a caterpillar, but nevertheless even a caterpillar must
have guts of some sort and so I am going to follow you, Red Flower
of Zoram, until some goggle-eyed monstrosity of the Jurassic
snatches me from this vale of tears."

"I do not know what you are talking about," snapped Jana; "but
if you follow me you will be killed. Remember what I told
you—only a man may go where goes The Red Flower of Zoram,"
and as though to prove her assertion she turned and slid quickly
over the edge of the precipice, disappearing from his view.

Running quickly forward to the edge of the chasm, Jason Gridley
looked down and there, a few yards below him, clinging to the
perpendicular face of the cliff Jana was working her way slowly
downward. Jason held his breath. It seemed incredible that any
creature could find hand or foothold upon that dizzy escarpment. He
shuddered and cold sweat broke out upon him as he watched the
girl.

Foot by foot she worked her way downward, while the man, lying
upon his belly, his head projecting over the edge of the cliff,
watched her in silence. He dared not speak to her for fear of
distracting her attention and when, after what seemed an eternity,
she reached the bottom, he fell to trembling like a leaf and for
the first time realized the extent of the nervous strain he had
been undergoing.

"God!" he murmured. "What a magnificent display of nerve and
courage and skill!"

The Red Flower of Zoram did not look back or upward once as she
resumed her way, following the gorge upward, searching for some
point where she might clamber out of it above the rift.

Jason Gridley looked down into the terrible abyss. "Only a man
may go where goes The Red Flower of Zoram," he mused.

He watched the girl until she disappeared behind a mass of
fallen rock, where the gorge curved to the right, and he knew that
unless he could descend into the gorge she had passed out of his
life forever.

"Only a man may go where goes The Red Flower of Zoram!"

Jason Gridley arose to his feet. He readjusted the leather sling
upon his rifle so that he could carry the weapon hanging down the
center of his back. He slipped the holsters of both of his six-guns
to the rear so that they, too, were entirely behind him. He removed
his boots and dropped them over the edge of the cliff. Then he lay
upon his belly and lowered his body slowly downward, and from a
short distance up the gorge two eyes watched him from behind a pile
of tumbled granite. There was anger in them at first, then
skepticism, then surprise, and then terror.

As gropingly the man sought for some tiny foothold and then
lowered himself slowly a few inches at a time, the eyes of the
girl, wide in horror, never left him for an instant.

"Only a man may go where goes The Red Flower of Zoram!"

Cautiously, Jason Gridley groped for each handhold and
foothold— each precarious support from which it seemed that
even his breathing might dislodge him. Hunger, thirst and fatigue
were forgotten as he marshaled every faculty to do the bidding of
his iron nerve.

Hugging close to the face of the cliff he did not dare turn his
head sufficiently to look downward and though it seemed he had
clung there, lowering himself inch by inch, for an eternity, yet he
had no idea how much further he had to descend. And so impossible
of accomplishment did the task that he had set himself appear that
never for an instant did he dare to hope for a successful
conclusion. Never for an instant did any new hold impart to him a
feeling of security, but each one seemed, if possible, more
precarious than its predecessor, and then he reached a point where,
grope as he would, he could find no foothold. He could not move to
right or left; nor could he ascend. Apparently he had reached the
end of his resources, but still he did not give up. Replacing his
torn and bleeding feet upon the last slight hold that they had
found, he cautiously sought for new handholds lower down, and when
he had found them—mere protuberances of tough
granite—he let his feet slip slowly from their support as
gradually he lowered his body to its full length, supported only by
his fingers, where they clutched at the tiny projections that were
his sole support.

As he clung there, desperately searching about with his feet for
some slight projection, he reproached himself for not having
discarded his heavy weapons and ammunition. And why? Because his
life was in jeopardy and he feared to die? No, his only thought was
that because of them he would be unable to cling much longer to the
cliff and that when his hands slipped from their holds and he was
dashed into eternity, his last, slender hope of ever again seeing
The Red Flower of Zoram would be gone. It is remarkable, perhaps,
that as he clung thus literally upon the brink of eternity, no
visions of Cynthia Furnois or Barbara Green impinged themselves
upon his consciousness.

He felt his fingers weakening and slipping from their hold. The
end came suddenly. The weight of his body dragged one hand loose
and instantly the other slipped from the tiny knob it had been
clutching, and Jason Gridley dropped downward, perhaps eighteen
inches to the bottom of the cliff.

As he came to a stop, his feet on solid rock, Jason could not
readily conceive the good fortune that had befallen him. Almost
afraid to look, he glanced downward and then the truth dawned upon
him—he had made the descent in safety. His knees sagged
beneath him and as he sank to the ground, a girl, watching him from
up the gorge, burst into tears.

A short distance below him a spring bubbled from the canyon
side, forming a little brooklet which leaped downward in the
sunlight toward the bottom of the canyon and the valley, and after
he had regained his composure he found his boots and hobbled down
to the water. Here he satisfied his thirst and washed his feet,
cleansing the cuts as best he could, bandaged them crudely with
strips torn from his handkerchief; pulled his boots on once more
and started up the canyon after Jana.

Far above, near the summit of the stupendous range, he saw
ominous clouds gathering. They were the first clouds that he had
seen in Pellucidar, but only for this reason did they seem
remarkable or important. That they presaged rain, he could well
imagine, but how could he dream of the catastrophic proportions of
their menace.

Far ahead of him The Red Flower of Zoram was clambering upward
along a precarious trail that gave promise of leading eventually
over the rim of the gorge to the upper reaches that she wished to
gain. When she had seen Jason's life in imminent jeopardy, she had
been filled with terror and remorse, but when he had safely
completed the descent her mood changed, and with the perversity of
her sex she still sought to elude him. She had almost gained the
summit of the escarpment when the storm broke and with it came a
realization that the man behind her was ignorant of the danger
which now more surely menaced him than had the descent of the
cliff.

Without an instant's hesitation The Red Flower of Zoram turned
and fled swiftly down the steep trail she had just so laboriously
ascended. She must reach him before the waters reached him. She
must guide him to some high place upon the canyon's wall, for she
knew that the bottom of this great gorge would soon be a foaming,
boiling torrent, spreading from side to side, its waters, perhaps,
two hundred feet in depth. Already the water was running deep in
the canyon far below her and spilling over the rim above her,
racing downward in torrents and cataracts and waterfalls that
carried earth and stone with them. Never in her life had Jana
witnessed a storm so terrible. The thunder roared and the lightning
flashed; the wind howled and the water fell in blinding sheets, and
yet constantly menaced by instant death the girl groped her way
blindly downward upon her hopeless errand of mercy. How hopeless it
was she was soon to see, for the waters in the gorge had risen, she
saw them just below her now, nor was the end in sight. Nothing down
there could have survived. The man must long since have been washed
away.

Jason was dead! The Red Flower of Zoram stood for an instant
looking at the rising waters below her. There came to her an urge
to throw herself into them. She did not want to live, but something
stayed her; perhaps it was the instinct of primeval man, whose
whole existence was a battle against death, who knew no other state
and might not conceive voluntary surrender to the enemy, and so she
turned and fought her way upward as the waters rising below her
climbed to overtake her and the waters from above sought to hurl
her backward to destruction.

Jason Gridley had witnessed cloudbursts in California and
Arizona and he knew how quickly gullies and ravines may be
transformed into raging torrents. He had seen a river a mile wide
formed in a few hours in the San Simon Flats, and when he saw the
sudden rush of waters in the bottom of the gorge below him and
realized that no storm that he had ever previously witnessed could
compare in magnitude with this, he lost no time in seeking higher
ground, but the sides of the canyon were steep and his upward
progress discouragingly slow, as he saw the waters rising rapidly
behind him. Yet there was hope, for just ahead and above him he saw
a gentle acclivity rising toward the summit of the canyon rim.

As he struggled toward safety the boiling torrent rose and
lapped his feet, while from above the torrential rain thundered
down upon him, beating him backward so that often for a full minute
at a time he could make no headway.

The raging waters that were filling the gorge reached his knees
and for an instant he was swept from his footing. Clutching at the
ground above him with his hands, he lost his rifle, but as it slid
into the turgid waters he clambered swiftly upward and regained
momentary safety.

Onward and upward he fought until at last he reached a spot
above which he was confident the flood could not reach and there he
crouched in the partial shelter of an overhanging granite ledge as
Tarzan and Thoar and Tar-gash were crouching in another part of the
mountains, waiting in dumb misery for the storm to spend its
wrath.

He wondered if Jana had escaped the flood and so much confidence
did he have in her masterful ability to cope with the vagaries of
savage Pellucidarian life that he harbored few fears for her upon
the score of the storm.

In the cold and the dark and the wet he tried to plan for the
future. What chance had he to find The Red Flower of Zoram in this
savage chaos of stupendous peaks when he did not even know the
direction in which her country lay and where there were no roads or
trails and where even the few tracks that she might have left must
have been wholly obliterated by the torrents of water that had
covered the whole surface of the ground?

To stumble blindly on, then, seemed the only course left open to
him, since he knew neither the direction of Zoram, other than in a
most general way, nor had any idea as to the whereabouts of his
fellow members of the O-220 expedition.

At last the rain ceased; the sun burst forth upon a steaming
world and beneath the benign influence of its warm rays Jason felt
the cold ashes of hope rekindled within his breast. Revivified, he
took up the search that but now had seemed so hopeless.

Trying to bear in mind the general direction in which Jana had
told him Zoram lay, he set his face toward what appeared to be a
low saddle between two lofty peaks, which appeared to surmount the
summit of the range. Thirst no longer afflicted him and the pangs
of hunger had become deadened. Nor did it seem at all likely that
he might soon find food since the storm seemed to have driven all
animal life from the higher hills, but fortune smiled upon him. In
a water worn rocky hollow he found a nest of eggs that had
withstood the onslaught of the elements. The nature of the creature
that had laid them he did not know; nor whether they were the eggs
of fowl or reptile did he care. They were fresh and they were food
and so large were they that the contents of two of them satisfied
his hunger.

A short distance from the spot where he had found them grew a
low stunted tree, and having eaten he carried the three remaining
eggs to this meager protection from the prying eyes of soaring
reptiles and birds of prey. Here he removed his clothing, hanging
it upon the branches of the tree where the sunlight might dry it,
and then he lay down beneath the tree to sleep, and in the warmth
of Pellucidar's eternal noon he found no discomfort.

How long a time he slept he had no means of estimating, but when
he awoke he was completely rested and refreshed. He was imbued with
a new sense of self-confidence as he arose, stretching luxuriously,
to don his clothes. His stretch half completed, he froze with
consternation—his clothes were gone! He looked hastily about
for them or for some sign of the creature that had purloined them,
but never again did he see the one, nor ever the other.

Upon the ground beneath the tree lay a shirt that, having
fallen, evidently escaped the eye of the marauder. That, his
revolvers and belts of ammunition, which had lain close to him
while he slept, were all that remained to him.

The temperature of Pellucidar is such that clothing is rather a
burden than a necessity, but so accustomed is civilized man to the
strange apparel with which he has encumbered himself for
generations that, bereft of it, his efficiency, self-reliance and
resourcefulness are reduced to a plane approximating the vanishing
point.

Never in his life had Jason Gridley felt so helpless and futile
as he did this instant as he contemplated the necessity which
stared him in the face of going forth into this world clothed only
in a torn shirt and an ammunition belt. Yet he realized that with
the exception of his boots he had lost nothing that was essential
either to his comfort or his efficiency, but perhaps he was
appalled most by the realization of the effect that this misfortune
would have upon the pursuit of the main object of his
quest—how could he prosecute the search for The Red Flower of
Zoram thus scantily appareled?

Of course The Red Flower had not been overburdened with wearing
apparel; yet in her case this seemed no reflection upon her
modesty, but the anticipation of finding her was now dampened by a
realization of the ridiculousness of the figure he would cut, and
already the mere contemplation of such a meeting caused a flush to
overspread him.

In his dreams he had sometimes imagined himself walking abroad
in some ridiculous state of undress, but now that such a dream had
become an actuality he appreciated that in the figment of the
subconscious mind he had never fully realized such complete
embarrassment and loss of self-confidence as the actuality
entailed.

Ruefully he tore his shirt into strips and devised a G-string;
then he buckled his ammunition belt around him and stepped forth
into the world, an Adam armed with two Colts.

As he proceeded upon his search for Zoram he found that the
greatest hardship which the loss of his clothing entailed was the
pain and discomfort attendant upon traveling barefoot on soles
already lacerated by his descent of the rough granite cliff. This
discomfort, however, he eventually partially overcame when with the
return of the game to the mountains he was able to shoot a small
reptile, from the hide of which he fashioned two crude sandals.

The sun, beating down upon his naked body, had no such effect
upon his skin as would the sun of the outer world under like
conditions, but it did impart to him a golden bronze color, which
gave him a new confidence similar to that which he would have felt
had he been able to retrieve his lost apparel, and in this fact he
saw what he believed to be the real cause of his first
embarrassment at his nakedness—it had been the whiteness of
his skin that had made him seem so naked by contrast with other
creatures, for this whiteness had suggested softness and weakness,
arousing within him a disturbing sensation of inferiority; but now
as he took on his heavy coat of tan and his feet became hardened
and accustomed to the new conditions, he walked no longer in
constant realization of his nakedness.

He slept and ate many times and was conscious, therefore, that
considerable outer earthly time had passed since he had been
separated from Jana. As yet he had seen no sign of her or any other
human being, though he was often menaced by savage beasts and
reptiles, but experience had taught him how best to elude these
without recourse to his weapons, which he was determined to use
only in extreme emergencies for he could not but anticipate with
misgivings the time, which must sometime come, when the last of his
ammunition would have been exhausted.

He had crossed the summit of the range and found a fairer
country beyond. It was still wild and tumbled and rocky, but the
vegetation grew more luxuriantly and in many places the mountain
slopes were clothed in forests that reached far upward toward the
higher peaks. There were more streams and a greater abundance of
smaller game, which afforded him relief from any anxiety upon the
score of food.

For the purpose of economizing his precious ammunition he had
fashioned other weapons; the influence of his association with Jana
being reflected in his spear, while to Tarzan of the Apes and the
Waziri he owed his crude bow and arrows. Before he had mastered the
intricacies of either of his new weapons he might have died of
starvation had it not been for his Colts, but eventually he
achieved a sufficient degree of adeptness to insure him a full
larder at all times.

Jason Gridley had long since given up all hope of finding his
ship or his companions and had accepted with what philosophy he
could command the future lot from which there seemed no escape, in
which he visioned a lifetime spent in Pellucidar, battling with his
primitive weapons for survival amongst the savage creatures of the
inner world.

Most of all he missed human companionship and he looked forward
to the day that he might find a tribe of men with which he could
cast his lot. Although he was quite aware from the information that
he had gleaned from Jana that it might be extremely difficult, if
not impossible, for him to win either the confidence or the
friendship of any Pellucidarian tribe whose attitude towards
strangers was one of habitual enmity, yet he did not abandon hope
and his eyes were always on the alert for a sign of man; nor was he
now to have long to wait.

He had lost all sense of direction in so far as the location of
Zoram was concerned and was wandering aimlessly from camp to camp
in the idle hope that some day he would stumble upon Zoram, when a
breeze coming from below brought to his nostrils the acrid scent of
smoke. Instantly his whole being was charged with excitement, for
smoke meant fire and fire meant man.

Moving cautiously down the mountain in the direction from which
the wind was blowing, his eager, searching eyes were presently
rewarded by sight of a thin wisp of smoke arising from a canyon
just ahead. It was a rocky canyon with precipitous walls, those
upon the opposite side from him being lofty, while that which he
was approaching was much lower and in many places so broken down by
erosion or other natural causes as to give ready ingress to the
canyon bottom below.

Creeping stealthily to the rim Jason Gridley peered downward
into the canyon. Along the center of its grassy floor tumbled a
mountain torrent. Giant trees grew at intervals, lending a
park-like appearance to the scene, a similarity which was further
accentuated by the gorgeous blooms which starred the sward or
blossomed in the trees themselves.

Beside a small fire at the edge of a brook squatted a bronzed
warrior, his attention centered upon a fowl which he was roasting
above the fire. Jason, watching the warrior, deliberated upon the
best method of approaching him, that he might convince him of his
friendly intentions and overcome the natural suspicion of strangers
that he knew to be inherent in these savage tribesmen. He had
decided that the best plan would be to walk boldly down to the
stranger, his hands empty of weapons, and he was upon the point of
putting his plan into action when his attention was attracted to
the summit of the cliff upon the opposite side of the narrow
canyon.

There had been no sound that had been appreciable to his ears
and the top of the opposite cliff had not been within the field of
his vision while he had been watching the man in the bottom of the
canyon. So what had attracted his attention he did not know, unless
it had been the delicate powers of perception inherent in that
mysterious attribute of the mind which we are sometimes pleased to
call a sixth sense.

But be that as it may, his eyes moved directly to a spot upon
the summit of the opposite cliff where stood such a creature as no
living man upon the outer crust had ever looked upon before—a
giant armored dinosaur it was, a huge reptile that appeared to be
between sixty and seventy feet in length, standing at the rump,
which was its highest point, fully twenty-five feet above the
ground. Its relatively small, pointed head resembled that of a
lizard. Along its spine were thin, horny plates arranged
alternately, the largest of which were almost three feet high and
equally as long, but with a thickness of little more than an inch.
The stout tail, which terminated in a long, horny spine, was
equipped with two other such spines upon the upper side and toward
the tip. Each of these spines was about three feet in length. The
creature walked upon four lizard-like feet, its short, front legs
bringing its nose close to the ground, imparting to it an awkward
and ungainly appearance.

It appeared to be watching the man in the canyon, and suddenly,
to Jason's amazement, it gathered its gigantic hind legs beneath it
and launched itself straight from the top of the lofty cliff.

Jason's first thought was that the gigantic creature would be
dashed to pieces upon the ground in the canyon bottom, but to his
vast astonishment he saw that it was not falling but was gliding
swiftly through the air, supported by its huge spinal plates, which
it had dropped to a horizontal position, transforming itself into a
gigantic animate glider.

The swish of its passage through the air attracted the attention
of the warrior squatting over his fire. The man leaped to his feet,
snatching up his spear as he did so, and simultaneously Jason
Gridley sprang over the edge of the cliff and leaped down the rough
declivity toward the lone warrior, at the same time whipping both
his six-guns from their holsters.

AS Tarzan swarmed up the rope the bear, almost
upon his heels and running swiftly, squatted upon its haunches to
overcome its momentum and came to a stop directly beneath him. And
then it was that there occurred one of those unforeseen accidents
which no one might have guarded against.

It chanced that the granite projection across which Tarzan had
cast his noose was at a single point of knife-like sharpness upon
its upper edge, and with the weight of the man dragging down upon
it the rope parted where it rested upon this sharp bit of granite,
and the Lord of the Jungle was precipitated upon the back of the
cave bear.

With such rapidity had these events transpired it is a matter of
question as to whether the bear or Tarzan was the more surprised,
but primitive creatures who would survive cannot permit surprise to
disconcert them. In this instance both of the creatures accepted
the happening as though it had been planned and expected.

The bear reared up and shook itself in an effort to dislodge the
man-thing from its back, while Tarzan slipped a bronzed arm around
the shaggy neck and clung desperately to his hold while he dragged
his hunting knife from its sheath. It was a precarious place in
which to stage a struggle for life. On one side the cliff rose far
above them, and upon the other it dropped away dizzily into the
depth of a gloomy gorge, and here the efforts of the cave bear to
dislodge its antagonist momentarily bade fair to plunge them both
into eternity.

The growls and roars of the quadruped reverberated among the
mighty peaks of the Mountains of the Thipdars, but the ape-man
battled silently, driving his blade repeatedly into the back of the
lunging beast, which was seeking by every means at its command to
dislodge him, though ever wary against precipitating itself over
the brink into the chasm.

But the battle could not go on forever and at last the blade
found the spinal cord. The creature stiffened spasmodically and
Tarzan slipped quickly from its back. He found safe footing upon
the ledge as the mighty carcass stumbled forward and rolled over
the edge to hurtle downward to the gorge's bottom, carrying with it
four of Tarzan's arrows and his spear.

The ape-man found his rope lying upon the ledge where it had
fallen, and gathering it up he started back along the trail in
search of the bow that he had been forced to discard in his flight,
as well as to find the boy.

He had taken only a few steps when, upon rounding the shoulder
of a crag, he came face to face with the youth. At sight of him the
latter stopped, his spear ready, his stone knife loosened in its
sheath. He had been carrying Tarzan's bow, but at sight of the
ape-man he dropped it at his feet, the better to defend himself in
the event that he was attacked by the stranger.

"I am Tarzan of the Apes," said the Lord of the Jungle. "I come
as a friend, and not to kill."

"I am Ovan," said the boy. "If you did not come to our country
to kill, then you came to steal a mate, and thus it is the duty of
every warrior of Clovi to kill you."

"Tarzan seeks no mate," said the ape-man.

"Then why is he in Clovi?" demanded the youth.

"He is lost," replied the ape-man. "Tarzan comes from another
world that is beyond Pellucidar. He has become separated from his
friends and he cannot find his way back to them. He would be
friends with the people of Clovi."

"Why did you attack the bear?" demanded Ovan, suddenly.

"If I had not attacked it, it would have killed you," replied
the ape-man.

Ovan scratched his head. "It seemed to me," he said presently,
"that there could be no other reason. It is what one of the men of
my own tribe would have done, but you are not of my tribe. You are
an enemy and so I could not understand why you did it. Do you tell
me that though I am not of your tribe you would have saved my
life?"

"Certainly," replied Tarzan.

Ovan looked long and steadily at the handsome giant standing
before him. "I believe you," he said presently, "although I do not
understand. I never heard of such a thing before, but I do not know
that the men of my tribe will believe. Even after I have told them
what you have done for me they may still wish to kill you, for they
believe that it is never safe to trust an enemy."

"Where is your village?" asked Tarzan.

"It is not at a great distance," replied Ovan.

"I will go there with you," said, Tarzan, "and talk with your
chief."

"Very well;" said the boy. "You may talk with Avan the chief. He
is my father. And if they decide to kill you I shall try to help
you, for you saved my life when the ryth would have destroyed
me."

"Why were you in the cave?" demanded Tarzan. "It was plainly
apparent that it was the den of a wild beast."

"You, too, were upon the same trail," said the boy, "while you
chanced to be behind the ryth. It was my misfortune that I was in
front of it."

"I did not know where the trail led," said the ape-man.

"Neither did I," said Ovan. "I have never hunted before except
in the company of older men, but now I have reached an age when I
would be a warrior myself, and so I have come out of the caves of
my people to make my first kill alone, for only thus may a man hope
to become a warrior. I saw this trail and, though I did not know
where it led, I followed it; nor had I been long upon it when I
heard the footsteps of the ryth behind me and when I came to the
cave and saw that the trail ended there, I knew that I should never
again see the caves of my people, that I should never become a
warrior. When the great ryth came and saw me standing there he was
very angry, but I should have fought him.

"Perhaps I might have killed him, though I do not believe that
that is at all likely.

"And then you came and with this bent stick cast a little spear
into the back of the ryth, which so enraged him that he forgot me
and turned to pursue you as you knew that he would. They must
indeed be brave warriors who come from the land from which you
come. Tell me about your country. Where is it? Are your warriors
great hunters and is your chief powerful in the land?"

Tarzan tried to explain that his country was not in Pellucidar,
but that was beyond Ovan's powers of conception, and so Tarzan
turned the conversation from himself to the youth and as they
followed a winding trail toward Clovi, Ovan discoursed upon the
bravery of the men of his tribe and the beauty of its women.

"Avan, my father, is a great chief," he said, "and the men of my
tribe are mighty warriors. Often we battle with the men of Zoram
and we have even gone as far as Daroz, which lies beyond Zoram, for
always there are more men than women in our tribe and the warriors
must seek their mates in Zoram and Daroz. Even now Carb has gone to
Zoram with twenty warriors to steal women. The women of Zoram are
very beautiful. When I am a little larger I shall go to Zoram and
steal a mate."

"How far is it from Clovi to Zoram?" asked Tarzan.

"Some say that it is not so far, and others that it is farther,"
replied Ovan. "I have heard it said that going to Zoram is much
farther than returning inasmuch as the warriors usually eat six
times on the journey from Clovi to Zoram, but returning a strong
man may make the journey eating only twice and still retain his
strength."

"But why should the distance be shorter returning than going?"
demanded the ape-man.

"Because when they are returning they are usually pursued by the
warriors of Zoram," replied Ovan.

Inwardly Tarzan smiled at the naïveté of Ovan's reasoning, while
it again impressed upon him the impossibility of measuring
distances or computing time under the anomalous condition obtaining
in Pellucidar.

As the two made their way toward Clovi, the boy gradually
abandoned his suspicious attitude toward Tarzan and presently
seemed to accept him quite as he would have a member of his own
tribe. He noticed the wound made by the talons of the thipdar on
Tarzan's back and shoulders and when he had wormed the story from
his companion he marveled at the courage, resourcefulness and
strength that had won escape for this stranger from what a
Pellucidarian would have considered an utterly hopeless
situation.

Ovan saw that the wounds were inflamed and realized that they
must be causing Tarzan considerable pain and discomfort, and so
when first their way led near a brook he insisted upon cleansing
them thoroughly, and collecting the leaves of a particular shrub he
crushed them and applied the juices to the open wounds.

The pain of the inflammation had been as nothing compared to the
acute agony caused by the application thus made by Ovan and yet the
boy noticed that not even by the tremor of a single muscle did the
stranger evidence the agony that Ovan well knew he was enduring,
and once again his admiration for his new-found companion was
increased.

"It may hurt," he said, "but it will keep the wounds from
rotting and afterward they will heal quickly."

For a short time after they resumed their march the pain
continued to be excruciating, but it lessened gradually until it
finally disappeared, and thereafter the ape-man felt no
discomfort.

The way led to a forest where there were straight, tough, young
saplings, and here Tarzan tarried long enough to fashion a new
spear and to split and scrape half a dozen additional arrows.

Ovan was much interested in Tarzan's steel-bladed knife and in
his bow and arrows, although secretly he looked with contempt upon
the latter, which he referred to as little spears for young
children. But when they became hungry and Tarzan bowled over a
mountain sheep with a single shaft, the lad's contempt was changed
to admiration and thereafter he not only evinced great respect for
the bow and arrows, but begged to be taught how to make and to use
them.

The little Clovian was a lad after the heart of the ape-man and
the two became fast friends as they made their way toward the land
of Clovi, for Ovan possessed the quiet dignity of the wild beast;
nor was he given to that garrulity which is at once the pride and
the curse of civilized man— there were no boy orators in the
peaceful Pliocene.

"We are almost there," announced Ovan, halting at the brink of a
canyon. "Below lie the caves of the Clovi. I hope that Avan, the
chief, will receive you as a friend, but that I cannot promise.
Perhaps it might be better for you to go your way and not come to
the caves of the Clovi. I do not want you to be killed."

"They will not kill me," said Tarzan. "I come as a friend." But
in his heart he knew that the chances were that these primitive
savages might never accept a stranger among them upon an equal or a
friendly footing.

"Come, then," said Ovan, as he started the descent into the
canyon. Part way down the trail turned up along the canyon side in
the direction of the head of the gorge. It was a level trail here,
well kept and much used, with indications that no little
engineering skill had entered into its construction. It was by no
means the haphazard trail of beasts, but rather the work of
intelligent, even though savage and primitive men.

They had proceeded no great distance along the trail when Ovan
sounded a low whistle, which, a moment later, was answered from
around the bend in the trail ahead, and when the two had passed
this turn Tarzan saw before him a wide, natural ledge of rock
entirely overhung by beetling cliffs and in the depth of the recess
thus formed in the cliff-side he saw the dark mouth of a
cavern.

Upon the flat surface of the ledge, which comprised some two
acres, were congregated fully a hundred men, women and
children.

All eyes were turned in their direction as they came into view
and on sight of Tarzan the warriors sprang to their feet, seizing
spears and knives. The women called their children to them and
moved quickly toward the entrance to the cavern.

"Do not fear," cried the boy. "It is only Ovan and his friend,
Tarzan."

"We kill," growled some of the warriors.

"Where is Avan the chief?" demanded the boy.

"Here is Avan the chief," announced a deep gruff voice, and
Tarzan shifted his gaze to the figure of a stalwart, brawny savage
emerging from the mouth of the cavern.

"What have you there, Ovan?" demanded the chief. "If you have
brought a prisoner of war, you should have disarmed him first."

"He is no prisoner," replied Ovan. "He is a stranger in
Pellucidar and he comes as a friend and not as an enemy."

"He is a stranger," replied Avan, "and you should have killed
him. He has learned the way to the caverns of Clovi and if we do
not kill him he will return to his people and lead them against
us."

"He has no people and he does not know how to return to his own
country," said the boy.

"Then he does not speak true words, for that is not possible,"
said Avan. "There can be no man who does not know the way to his
own country. Come! Stand aside, Ovan, while I destroy him."

The lad drew himself stiffly erect in front of Tarzan. "Who
would kill the friend of Ovan," he said, "must first kill
Ovan."

A tall warrior, standing near the chief, laid his hand upon
Avan's arm. "Ovan has always been a good boy," he said. "There is
none in Clovi near his age whose words are as full of wisdom as
his. If he says that this stranger is his friend and if he does not
wish us to kill him, he must have a reason and we should listen to
him before we decide to destroy the stranger."

"Very well," said the chief, "perhaps you are right, Ulan. We
shall see. Speak, boy, and tell us why we should not kill the
stranger."

"Because at the risk of his life he saved mine. Hand to hand he
fought with a great ryth from which I could not have escaped had it
not been for him; nor did he offer to harm me, and what enemy of
the Clovi is there, even among the people of Zoram or Daroz who are
of our own blood, that would not slay a Clovi youth who was so soon
to become a warrior? Not only is he very brave, but he is a great
hunter. It would be well for the tribe of Clovi if he came to live
with us as a friend."

Avan bowed his head in thought. "When Carb returns we shall call
a council and decide what to do," he said. "In the meantime the
stranger must remain here as a prisoner."

"I shall not remain as a prisoner," said Tarzan. "I came as a
friend and I shall remain as a friend, or I shall not remain at
all."

"Let him stay as a friend," said Ulan. "He has marched with Ovan
and has not harmed him. Why should we think that he will harm us
when we are many and he only one?"

"Perhaps he has come to steal a woman," suggested Avan.

"No," said Avan, "that is not so. Let him remain and with my
life I will guarantee that he will harm no one."

"Let him stay," said some of the other warriors, for Ovan had
long been the pet of the tribe so that they were accustomed to
humoring him and so unspoiled was he that they still found pleasure
in doing so.

"Very well," said Avan. "Let him remain. But Ovan and Ulan shall
be responsible for his conduct."

There were only a few of the Clovians who accepted Tarzan
without suspicion, and among these was Maral, the mother of Ovan,
and Rela, his sister. These two accepted him without question
because Ovan had accepted him. Ulan's friendship, too, had been
apparent from the first; nor was it without great value for Ulan,
because of his intelligence, courage and ability was a force in the
councils of the Clovi.

Tarzan, accustomed to the tribal life of primitive people, took
his place naturally among them, paying no attention to those who
paid no attention to him, observing scrupulously the ethics of
tribal life and conforming to the customs of the Clovi in every
detail of his relations with them. He liked to talk with Maral
because of her sunny disposition and her marked intelligence. She
told him that she was from Zoram, having been captured by Avan
when, as a young warrior, he had decided to take a mate. And to her
nativity he attributed her great beauty, for it seemed to be an
accepted fact among the Clovis that the women of Zoram were the
most beautiful of all women.

Ulan he had liked from the first, being naturally attracted to
him because he had been the first of the Clovians to champion his
cause. In many ways Ulan differed from his fellows. He seemed to
have been the first among his people to discover that a brain may
be used for purposes other than securing the bare necessities of
existence. He had learned to dream and to exercise his brain along
pleasant paths that gave entertainment to himself and
others—fantastic stories that sometimes amused and sometimes
awed his eager audiences; and, too, he was a maker of pictures and
these he exhibited to Tarzan with no small measure of pride.
Leading the ape-man into the rocky cavern that was the shelter, the
storehouse and the citadel of the tribe, he lighted a crude torch
which illuminated the walls, revealing the pictures that Ulan had
drawn there. Mammoth and saber-tooth and cave bear were depicted,
with the red deer, the hyaenodon and other familiar beasts, and in
addition thereto were some with which Tarzan was unfamiliar and one
that he had never seen elsewhere than in Pal-ul-don, where it had
been known as a gryf. Ulan told him that it was a gyor and that it
was found upon the Gyor Cors, or Gyor Plains, which lie at the end
of the range of the Mountains of the Thipdars beyond Clovi.

The drawings were in outline and were well executed. The other
members of the tribe thought they were very wonderful for Ulan was
the first ever to have made them and they could not understand how
he did it. Perhaps if he had been a weakling he would have lost
caste among them because of this gift, but inasmuch as he was also
a noted hunter and warrior his talents but added to his fame and
the esteem in which he was held by all.

But though these and a few others were friendly toward him, the
majority of the tribe looked upon Tarzan with suspicion, for never
within the memory of one of them had a strange warrior entered
their village other than as an enemy. They were waiting for the
return of Carb and the warriors who had accompanied him, when, the
majority of them hoped, the council would sentence the stranger to
death.

As they became better acquainted with Tarzan, however, others
among them were being constantly won to his cause and this was
particularly true when he accompanied them upon their hunts, his
skill and his prowess winning their admiration, and his strange
weapons which they had at first viewed with contempt, soon
commanding their unqualified respect.

And so it was that the longer that Carb remained away the better
Tarzan's chances became of being accepted into the tribe upon an
equal footing with its other members, a contingency for which he
hoped since it would afford him a base from which to prosecute his
search for his fellows and allies familiar with the country, whose
friendly services he could enlist to aid him in his search.

He was confident that Jason Gridley, if he still lived, was lost
somewhere among these stupendous mountains and if he could but find
him they might eventually, with the assistance of the Clovians,
locate the camp of the O-220.

He had eaten and slept with the Clovi many times and had
accompanied them upon several hunts. It had been noon when he
arrived and it was still noon, so whether a day or a month had
passed he did not know. He was squatting by the cook-fire of Maral,
talking with her and with Ulan, when from down the gorge there
sounded the whistled signal of the Clovians announcing the approach
of a friendly party and an instant later a youth rounded the
shoulder of the cliff and entered the village.

"It is Tomar," announced Maral. "Perhaps he brings news of
Carb."

The youth ran to the center of the ledge upon which the village
stood and halted. For a moment he stood there dramatically with
upraised hand, commanding silence, and then he spoke. "Carb is
returning," he cried. "The victorious warriors of Clovi are
returning with the most beautiful woman of Zoram. Great is Carb!
Great are the warriors of Clovi!"

Cook fires and the routine occupations of the moment were
abandoned as the tribe advanced to await the coming of the
victorious war party.

Presently it came into sight, rounding the shoulder of the cliff
and filing on to the ledge—twenty warriors led by Carb and
among them a girl, her wrists bound behind her back, a rawhide
leash around her neck, the free end held by a brawny warrior.

The ape-man's greatest interest lay in Carb, for his position in
the tribe, perhaps even his life itself might rest with the
decision of this man, whose influence, he had learned, was great in
the councils of his people.

Carb was evidently a man of great physical strength; his regular
features imparted to him much of the physical beauty that is an
attribute of his people, but an otherwise handsome countenance was
marred by thin, cruel lips and cold, unsympathetic eyes.

From contemplation of Carb the ape-man's eyes wandered to the
face of the prisoner, and there they were arrested by the startling
beauty of the girl. Well, indeed, thought Tarzan, might she be
acclaimed the most beautiful woman of Zoram, for it was doubtful
that there existed many in this world or the outer who might lay
claim to greater pulchritude than she.

Avan, the chief, standing in the center of the ledge, received
the returning warriors. He looked with favor upon the prize and
listened attentively while Carb narrated the more important details
of the expedition.

"We shall hold the council at once," announced Avan, "to decide
who shall possess the prisoner, and at the same time we may settle
another matter that has been awaiting the return of Carb and his
warriors."

"What is that?" demanded Carb.

Avan pointed at Tarzan. "There is a stranger who would come into
the tribe and be as one of us."

Carb turned his cold eyes in the direction of the ape-man and
his face clouded. "Why has he not been destroyed?" he asked. "Let
us do away with him at once."

"That is not for you to decide," said Avan, the chief.

"The warriors in council alone may say what shall be done."

Carb shrugged. "If the council does not destroy him, I shall
kill him myself," he said. "I, Carb, will have no enemy living in
the village where I live."

"Let us hold the council at once, then," said Ulan, "for if Carb
is greater than the council of the warriors we should know it."
There was a note of sarcasm in his voice.

"We have marched for a long time without food or sleep," said
Carb. "Let us eat and rest before the council is held, for matters
may arise in the council which will demand all of our strength,"
and he looked pointedly at Ulan.

The other warriors, who had accompanied Carb, also wished to eat
and rest before the council was held, and Avan, the chief, acceded
to their just demands.

The girl captive had not spoken since she had arrived in the
village and she was now turned over to Maral, who was instructed to
feed her and permit her to sleep. The bonds were removed from her
wrists and she was brought to the cook-fire of the chief's mate,
where she stood with an expression of haughty disdain upon her
beautiful face.

None of the women revealed any inclination to abuse the
prisoner—an attitude which rather surprised Tarzan until the
reason for it had been explained to him, for he had upon more than
one occasion witnessed the cruelties inflicted upon female
prisoners by the women of native African tribes into whose hands
the poor creatures had fallen.

Maral, in particular, was kind to the girl. "Why should I be
otherwise?" she asked when Tarzan commented upon the fact. "Our
daughters, or even anyone of us, may at any time be captured by the
warriors of another tribe, and if it were known that we had been
cruel to their women, they would doubtless repay us in kind; nor,
aside from this, is there any reason why we should be other than
kind to a woman who will live among us for the rest of her life. We
are few in numbers and we are constantly together. If we harbored
enmities and if we quarreled our lives would be less happy. Since
you have been here you have never seen quarreling among the women
of Clovi; nor would you if you remained here for the rest of your
life. There have been quarrelsome women among us, just as at some
time there have been crippled children, but as we destroy the one
for the good of the tribe we destroy the others."

She turned to the girl. "Sit down," she said pleasantly. "There
is meat in the pot. Eat, and then you may sleep. Do not be afraid;
you are among friends. I, too, am from Zoram."

At that the girl turned her eyes upon the speaker. "You are from
Zoram?" she asked. "Then you must have felt as I feel. I want to go
back to Zoram. I would rather die than live elsewhere."

"You will get over that," said Maral. "I felt the same way, but
when I became acquainted I found that the people of Clovi are much
like the people of Zoram. They have been kind to me, they will be
kind to you, and you will be happy as I have been. When they have
given you a mate you will look upon life very differently."

"I shall not mate with one of them," cried the girl, stamping
her sandaled foot. "I am Jana, The Red Flower of Zoram, and I
choose my own mate."

Maral shook her head sadly. "Thus spoke I once," she said, "but
I have changed, and so will you."

"Not I," said the girl, "I have seen but one man with whom I
would mate and I shall never mate with another."

"You are Jana," asked Tarzan, "the sister of Thoar?"

The girl looked at him in surprise, and as though she had
noticed him now for the first time her eyes quickly investigated
him. "Ah," she said, "you are the stranger whom Carb would
destroy."

"Yes," replied the ape-man.

"What do you know of Thoar, my brother?"

"We hunted together. We were traveling back to Zoram when I
became separated from him. We were following the tracks made by you
and the man who was with you when a storm came and obliterated
them. Your companion was the man whom I was seeking."

"What do you know of the man who was with me?" demanded the
girl.

"He is my friend," replied Tarzan. "What has become of him?"

"He was caught in a canyon during the storm and he must have
been drowned," replied Jana sadly. "You are from his country?"

"Yes."

"How did you know he was with me?" she demanded.

"I recognized his tracks and Thoar recognized yours."

"He was a great warrior," she said, "and a very brave man."

"Are you sure that he is dead?" asked Tarzan.

"I am sure," replied The Red Flower of Zoram.

For a time they were silent, both occupied with thoughts of
Jason Gridley. "You were his friend," said Jana. She had moved
close to him and had seated herself at his side. Now she leaned
still closer. "They are going to kill you," she whispered. "I know
the people of these tribes better than you and I know Carb. He will
have his way. You were Jason's friend and so was I. If we can
escape I can lead the way back to Zoram, and if you are Thoar's
friend and mine the people of Zoram will have to accept you."

"Why do you whisper?" asked a gruff voice behind them, and
turning they saw Avan, the chief. Without waiting for a reply, be
turned to Maral. "Take the woman to the cavern," he said. "She will
remain there until the council has decided who shall have her as
mate, and in the meantime I will place warriors at the entrance to
the cavern to see that she does not escape."

As Maral motioned Jana toward the cavern, the latter arose, and
as she did so she cast an appealing glance at Tarzan. The ape-man,
who was already upon his feet, looked quickly about him. Perhaps a
hundred members of the tribe were scattered about the ledge, while
near the opening to the trail which led down the canyon and which
afforded the only avenue of escape, fully a dozen warriors
loitered. Alone he might have won his way through, but with the
girl it would have been impossible. He shook his head and his lips,
which were turned away from Avan, formed the word, "Wait!" and a
moment later The Red Flower of Zoram had entered the dark cavern of
the Clovians.

"And as for you, man of another country," said Avan, addressing
Tarzan, "until the council has decided upon your fate, you are a
prisoner. Go, therefore, into the cavern and remain there until the
council of warriors has spoken."

A dozen warriors barred his way to freedom now, but they were
lolling idly, expecting no emergency. A bold dash for freedom might
carry him beyond them before they could realize that he was
attempting escape. He was confident that the voice of the council
would be adverse to him and when its decision was announced he
would be surrounded by all the warriors of Clovi, alert and ready
to prevent his escape. Now, therefore, was the most propitious
moment; but Tarzan of the Apes made no break for liberty; instead
he turned and strode toward the entrance to the cavern, for The Red
Flower of Zoram had appealed to him for aid and he would not desert
the sister of Thoar and the friend of Jason.

AS Jason Gridley leaped down the canyon side
toward the lone warrior who stood facing the attack of the
tremendous reptile gliding swiftly through the air from the top of
the opposite cliff side, there flashed upon the screen of his
recollection the picture of a restoration of a similar extinct
reptile and he recognized the creature as a stegosaurus of the
Jurassic, but how inadequately had the picture that he had seen
carried to his mind the colossal proportions of the creature, or
but remotely suggested its terrifying aspect.

Jason saw the lone warrior standing there facing inevitable
doom, but in his attitude was no outward sign of fear. In his right
hand he held his puny spear, and in his left his crude stone knife.
He would die, but he would give a good account of himself. There
was no panic of terror, no futile flight.

The distance between Jason and the stegosaurus was overly great
for a revolver shot, but the American hoped that he might at least
divert the attention of the reptile from its prey and even,
perhaps, frighten it away by the unaccustomed sound of the report
of the weapon, and so he fired twice in rapid succession as he
leaped downward toward the bottom of the canyon. That at least one
of the shots struck the reptile was evidenced by the fact that it
veered from its course, simultaneously emitting a loud, screaming
sound.

Attracted to Jason by the report of the revolver and evidently
attributing its hurt to this new enemy, the reptile, using its tail
as a rudder and tilting its spine plates up on one side, veered in
the direction of the American.

As the two shots shattered the silence of the canyon, the
warrior turned his eyes in the direction of the man leaping down
the declivity toward him, and then he saw the reptile veer in the
direction of the newcomer.

Heredity and training, coupled with experience, had taught this
primitive savage that every man's hand was against him, unless that
man was a member of his own tribe. Only upon a single occasion in
his life had experience controverted these teachings, and so it
seemed inconceivable that this stranger, whom he immediately
recognized as such, was deliberately risking his life in an effort
to succor him; yet there seemed no other explanation, and so the
perplexed warrior, instead of seeking to escape now that the
attention of the reptile was diverted from him, ran swiftly toward
Jason to join forces with him in combating the attack of the
creature.

From the instant that the stegosaurus had leaped from the summit
of the cliff, it had hurtled through the air with a speed which
seemed entirely out of proportion to its tremendous bulk, so that
all that had transpired in the meantime had occupied but a few
moments of time, and Jason Gridley found himself facing this
onrushing death almost before he had had time to speculate upon the
possible results of his venturesome interference.

With wide distended jaws and uttering piercing shrieks, the
terrifying creature shot toward him, but now at last it presented
an easy target and Jason Gridley was entirely competent to take
advantage of the altered situation.

He fired rapidly with both weapons, trying to reach the tiny
brain, at the location of which he could only guess and for which
his bullets were searching through the roof of the opened mouth.
His greatest hope, however, was that the beast could not for long
face that terrific fusillade of shots, and in this he was right.
The strange and terrifying sound and the pain and shock of the
bullets tearing into its skull proved too much for the stegosaurus.
Scarcely half a dozen feet from Gridley it swerved upward and
passed over his head, receiving two or three bullets in its belly
as it did so.

Still shrieking with rage and pain it glided to the ground
beyond him.

Almost immediately it turned to renew the attack. This time it
came upon its four feet, and Jason saw that it was likely to prove
fully as formidable upon the ground as it had been in the air, for
considering its tremendous bulk it moved with great agility and
speed.

As he stood facing the returning creature, the warrior reached
his side.

"Get on that side of him," said the warrior, "and I will attack
him on this. Keep out of the way of his tail. Use your spear; you
cannot frighten a dyrodor away by making a noise."

Jason Gridley leaped quickly to one side to obey the suggestions
of the warrior smiling inwardly at the naïve suggestion of the
other that his Colt had been used solely to frighten the
creature.

The warrior took his place upon the opposite side of the
approaching reptile, but before he had time to cast his spear or
Jason to fire again the creature stumbled forward, its nose dug
into the ground and it rolled over upon its side dead.

"It is dead!" said the warrior in a surprised tone. "What could
have killed it? Neither one of us has cast a spear."

"Noises do not kill," said the warrior skeptically. "It is not
the bark of the jalok or the growl of the ryth that rends the flesh
of man. The hiss of the thipdar kills no one."

"It was not the noise that killed it," said Jason, "but if you
will examine its head and especially the roof of its mouth you will
see what happened when my weapons spoke."

Following Jason's suggestion the warrior examined the head and
mouth of the dyrodor and when he had seen the gaping wounds he
looked at Jason with a new respect. "Who are you," he asked, "and
what are you doing in the land of Zoram?"

"My God!" exclaimed Jason. "Am I in Zoram?"

"You are."

"And you are one of the men of Zoram?" demanded the
American.

"I am, but who are you?"

"Tell me, do you know Jana, The Red Flower of Zoram?" insisted
Jason.

"What do you know of The Red Flower of Zoram, stranger?"
demanded the other. And then suddenly his eyes widened to a new
thought. "Tell me," he cried, "by what name do they call you in the
country from which you come?"

"My name is Gridley," replied the American, "Jason Gridley."

"Jason!" exclaimed the other, "yes, Jason Gridley, that is it.
Tell me, man, where is The Red Flower of Zoram? What did you with
her?"

"That is what I am asking you," said Jason. "We became separated
and I have been searching for her. But what do you know of me?"

"I followed you for a long time," replied the other, "but the
waters fell and obliterated your tracks."

"Why did you follow me?" asked Jason.

"I followed because you were with The Red Flower of Zoram,"
replied the other. "I followed to kill you, but he said you would
not harm her; he said that she went with you willingly. Is that
true?"

"She came with me willingly for a while," replied Jason, "and
then she left me, but I did not harm her."

"Perhaps he was right then," said the warrior. "I shall wait
until I find her and if you have not harmed her, I shall not kill
you."

"Whom do you mean by 'he'?" asked Jason. "There is no one in
Pellucidar who could possibly know anything about me, except
Jana."

"Do you not know Tarzan?" asked the warrior.

"Tarzan!" exclaimed Jason. "You have seen Tarzan? He is
alive?"

"I saw him. We hunted together and we followed you and Jana, but
he is not alive now; he is dead."

"Dead! You are sure that he is dead?"

"Yes, he is dead."

"How did it happen?"

"We were crossing the summit of the mountains when he was seized
by a thipdar and carried away."

Tarzan dead! He had feared as much and yet now that he had proof
it seemed unbelievable. His mind could scarcely grasp the
significance of the words that he had heard as he recalled the
strength and vitality of that man of steel. It seemed incredible
that that giant frame should cease to pulsate with life; that those
mighty muscles no longer rolled beneath the sleek, bronzed hide;
that that courageous heart no longer beat.

"You were very fond of him?" asked the warrior, noticing the
silence and dejection of the other.

"Yes," said Jason.

"So was I," said the warrior; "but neither Tar-gash nor I could
save him. The thipdar struck so swiftly and was gone before we
could cast a weapon."

"Who is Tar-gash?" asked Jason.

"A Sagoth—one of the hairy men," replied the warrior.
"They live in the forest and are often used as warriors by the
Mahars."

"And he was with you and Tarzan?" inquired Jason.

"Yes. They were together when I first saw them, but now Tarzan
is dead and Tar-gash has gone back to his own country and I must
proceed upon my search for The Red Flower of Zoram. You have saved
my life, man from another country, but I do not know that you have
not harmed Jana. Perhaps you have slain her. How am I to know? I do
not know what I should do."

"I, too, am looking for Jana," said Jason. "Let us look for her
together."

"Then if we find her, she shall tell me whether or not I shall
kill you," said the warrior.

Jason could not but recall how angry Jana had been with him. She
had almost killed him herself. Perhaps she would find it easier to
permit this warrior to kill him. Doubtless the man was her
sweetheart and if he knew the truth he would need no urging to
destroy a rival, but neither by look nor word did he reveal any
apprehension as he replied.

"I will go with you," he said, "and if I have harmed The Red
Flower of Zoram you may kill me. What is your name?"

"Thoar," replied the warrior.

Jana had spoken of her brother to Jason, but if she had ever
mentioned his name, the American had forgotten it, and so he
continued to think that Thoar was the sweetheart and possibly the
mate of The Red Flower and his reaction to this belief was
unpleasant, yet why it should have been he could not have
explained. The more he thought of the matter the more certain he
was that Thoar was Jana's mate, for who was there who might more
naturally desire to kill one who had wronged her. Yes, he was sure
that the man was Jana's mate. The thought made him angry for she
had certainly led him to believe that she was not mated. That was
just like a woman, he meditated; they were all flirts; they would
make a fool of a man merely to pass an idle hour, but she had not
made a fool of him. He had not fallen victim to her lures, that is
why she had been so angry—her vanity had been
piqued—and being a very primitive young person the first
thought that had come to her mind had been to kill him. What a
little devil she was to try to get him to make love to her when she
already had a mate, and thus Jason almost succeeded in working
himself into a rage until his sense of humor came to his rescue,
yet even though he smiled, way down deep within him something hurt
and he wondered why.

"Where did you last see Jana?" asked Thoar. "We can return there
and try and locate her tracks."

"I do not know that I can explain," replied Jason. "It is very
difficult for me to locate myself or anything else where there are
no points of compass."

"We can start together at the point where we found your tracks
with Jana's," said Thoar.

"Perhaps that will not be necessary if you are familiar with the
country on the other side of the range," said Jason. "Returning
toward the mountains from the spot where I first saw Jana, there
was a tremendous gorge upon our left. It was toward this gorge that
the two men of the four that had been pursuing her ran after I had
killed two of their number. Jana tried to find a way to the summit,
far to the right of this gorge, but our path was blocked by a deep
rift which paralleled the base of the mountains, so that she was
compelled to turn back again toward the gorge, into which she
descended. The last I saw of her she was going up the gorge, so
that if you know where this gorge lies it will not be necessary for
us to go all the way back to the point at which I first met
her."

"I know the gorge," said Thoar, "and if the two Phelians entered
it it is possible that they captured her. We will search in the
direction of the gorge then and if we do not find any trace of her,
we shall drop down to the country of the Phelians in the
lowland."

Through a maze of jagged peaks Thoar led the way. To him time
meant nothing; to Jason Gridley it was little more than a memory.
When they found food they ate; when they were tired they slept, and
always just ahead there were perilous crags to skirt and stupendous
cliffs to scale. To the American it would have seemed incredible
that a girl ever could find her way here had he not had occasion to
follow where The Red Flower of Zoram led.

Occasionally they were forced to take a lower route which led
into the forests that climbed higher along the slopes of the
mountains, and here they found more game and with Thoar's
assistance Jason fashioned a garment from the hide of a mountain
goat. It was at best but a sketchy garment; yet it sufficed for the
purpose for which it was intended and left his arms and legs free.
Nor was it long before he realized its advantages and wondered why
civilized man of the outer crust should so encumber himself with
useless clothing, when the demands of temperature did not require
it.

As Jason became better acquainted with Thoar he found his regard
for him changing from suspicion into admiration, and finally to a
genuine liking for the savage Pellucidarian, in spite of the fact
that this sentiment was tinged with a feeling that, while not
positive animosity, was yet akin to it. It was difficult for Jason
to fathom the sentiment which seemed to animate him. There could be
no rivalry between him and this primitive warrior and yet Jason's
whole demeanor and attitude toward Thoar was such as might be
scrupulously observed by any honorable man toward an honorable
opponent or rival.

They seldom, if ever, spoke of Jana, yet thoughts of her were
uppermost in the mind of each of them. Jason often found himself
reviewing every detail of his association with her; every little
characteristic gesture and expression was indelibly imprinted upon
his memory, as were the contours of her perfect figure and the
radiant loveliness of her face. Not even the bitter words with
which she had parted with him could erase the memory of her joyous
comradeship. Never before in his life had he missed the
companionship of any woman. At times he tried to crowd her from his
thoughts by recalling incidents of his friendship with Cynthia
Furnois or Barbara Green, but the vision of The Red Flower of Zoram
remained persistently in the foreground, while that of Cynthia and
Barbara always faded gradually into forgetfulness.

This state of mental subjugation to the personality of an
untutored savage, however beautiful, annoyed his ego and he tried
to escape it by dwelling upon the sorrow entailed by the death of
Tarzan, but somehow he never could convince himself that Tarzan was
dead. It was one of those things that it was simply impossible to
conceive.

Failing in this, he would seek to occupy his mind with
conjectures concerning the fate of Von Horst, Muviro and the Waziri
warriors, or upon what was transpiring aboard the great dirigible
in search of which his eyes were often scanning the cloudless
Pellucidarian sky. But travel where it would, even to his remote
Tarzana hills in far off California, it would always return to
hover around the girlish figure of The Red Flower of Zoram.

Thoar, upon his part, found in the American a companion after
his own heart—a dependable man of quiet ways, always ready to
assume his share of the burden and responsibilities of the savage
trail they trod.

So the two came at last to the rim of the great gorge and though
they followed it up and down for a great distance in each direction
they found no trace of Jana, nor any sign that she had passed that
way.

"We shall go down to the lowlands," said Thoar, "to the country
that is called Pheli and even though we may not find her, we shall
avenge her."

The idea of primitive justice suggested by Thoar's decision
aroused no opposing question of ethics in the mind of the civilized
American; in fact, it seemed quite the most natural thing in the
world that he and Thoar should constitute themselves a court of
justice as well as the instrument of its punishment, for thus
easily does man slough off the thin veneer of civilization, which
alone differentiates him from his primitive ancestors.

Thus a gap of perhaps a hundred thousand years which yawned
between Thoar of Zoram and Jason Gridley of Tarzana was closed.
Imbued with the same hatred, they descended the slopes of the
Mountains of the Thipdars toward the land of Pheli, and the heart
of each was hot with the lust to kill. No greedy munitions
manufacturer was needed here to start a war.

Down through stately forests and across rolling foothills went
Thoar and Jason toward the land of Pheli. The country teemed with
game of all descriptions and their way was beset by fierce
carnivores, by stupid, irritable herbivores of ponderous weight and
short tempers or by gigantic reptiles beneath whose charging feet
the earth trembled. It was by the exercise of the superior
intelligence of man combined with a considerable share of luck that
they passed unscathed to the swamp land where Pheli lies. Here the
world seemed dedicated to the reptilia. They swarmed in countless
thousands and in all sizes and infinite varieties. Aquatic and
amphibious, carnivorous and herbivorous, they hissed and screamed
and fought and devoured one another constantly, so that Jason
wondered in what intervals they found the time to propagate their
kind and he marveled that the herbivores among them could exist at
all. A terrific orgy of extermination seemed to constitute the
entire existence of a large proportion of the species and yet the
tremendous size of many of them, including several varieties of the
herbivores, furnished ample evidence that considerable numbers of
them lived to a great age, for unlike mammals, reptiles never cease
to grow while they are living.

The swamp, in which Thoar believed the villages of the Phelians
were to be found, supported a tremendous forest of gigantic trees
and so interlaced were their branches that oftentimes the two men
found it expedient to travel among them rather than upon the
treacherous, boggy ground. Here, too, the reptiles were smaller,
though scarcely less numerous. Among these, however, there were
exceptions, and those which caused them the greatest anxiety were
snakes of such titanic proportions that when he first encountered
one Jason could not believe the testimony of his own eyes. They
came upon the creature suddenly as it was in the act of swallowing
a trachodon that was almost as large as an elephant. The huge
herbivorous dinosaur was still alive and battling bravely to
extricate itself from the jaws of the serpent, but not even its
giant strength nor its terrific armament of teeth, which included a
reserve supply of over four hundred in the lower jaw alone, availed
it in its unequal struggle with the colossal creature that was
slowly swallowing it alive.

Perhaps it was their diminutive size as much as their brains or
luck that saved the two men from the jaws of these horrid
creatures. Or, again, it may have been the dense stupidity of the
reptiles themselves, which made it comparatively easy for the men
to elude them.

Here in this dismal swamp of horrors not even the giant tarags
or the equally ferocious lions and leopards of Pellucidar dared
venture, and how man existed there it was beyond the power of Jason
to conceive. In fact he doubted that the Phelians or any other race
of men made their homes here.

"Men could not exist in such a place," he said to Thoar. "Pheli
must lie elsewhere."

"No," said his companion, "members of my tribe have come down
here more than once in the memory of man to avenge the stealing of
a woman and the stories that they have brought back have
familiarized us all with the conditions existing in the land of
Pheli. This is indeed it."

"You may be right," said Jason, "but, like these snakes that we
have seen, I shall have to see the villages of the Phelians before
I will believe that they exist here and even then I won't know
whether to believe it or not."

"It will not be long now," said Thoar, "before you shall see the
Phelians in their own village."

"What makes you think so?" asked Jason.

"Look down below you and you will see what I have been searching
for," replied Thoar, pointing.

Jason did as he was bid and discovered a small stream meandering
through the swamp. "I see nothing but a brook," he said.

"That is what I have been searching for," replied Thoar. "All of
my people who have been here say that Phelians live upon the banks
of a river that runs through the swamp. In places the land is high
and upon these hills the Phelians build their homes. They do not
live in caverns as do we, but they make houses of great trees so
strong that not even the largest reptiles can break into them."

"But why should anyone choose to live in such a place?" demanded
the American.

"To eat and to breed in comparative peace and contentment,"
replied Thoar. "The Phelians, unlike the mountain people, are not a
race of warriors. They do not like to fight and so they have hidden
their villages away in this swamp where no man would care to come
and thus they are practically free from human enemies. Also, here,
meat abounds in such quantities that food lies always at their
doors. For them then the conditions are ideal and here, more than
elsewhere in Pellucidar, may they find contentment."

As they advanced now they exercised the greatest caution,
knowing that any moment they might come within sight of a Phelian
village. Nor was it long before Thoar halted and drew back behind
the bole of a tree which they were passing, then he pointed
forward. Jason, looking, saw a bare hill before them, just a
portion of which was visible through the trees. It, was evident
that the hill had been cleared by man, for many stumps remained.
Within the range of his vision was but a single house, if such it
might be called.

It was constructed of logs, a foot or two in diameter. Three or
four of these logs, placed horizontally and lying one upon the
other, formed the wall that was presented to Jason's view. The
other side wall paralleled it at a distance of five or six feet,
and across the top of the upper logs were laid sections of smaller
trees, about six inches in diameter, and placed not more than a
foot apart. These supported the roof, which consisted of several
logs, a little longer than the logs constituting the walls. The
roof logs were laid close together, the interstices being filled
with mud. The front of the building was formed by shorter logs set
upright in the ground, a single small aperture being left to form a
doorway. But the most noticeable feature of Phelian architecture
consisted of long pointed stakes, which protruded diagonally from
the ground at an angle of about forty-five degrees, pointing
outward from the base of the walls entirely around the building at
intervals of about eighteen inches. The stakes themselves were six
or eight inches in diameter and about ten feet long, being
sharpened at the upper end, and forming a barrier against which few
creatures, however brainless they might be, would venture to hurl
themselves.

Drawing closer the two men had a better view of the village,
which contained upon that side of the hill they were approaching
and upon the top four buildings similar to that which they had
first discovered. Close about the base of the hill grew the dense
forest, but the hill itself had been entirely denuded of vegetation
so that nothing, either large or small, could approach the
habitation of the Phelians without being discovered.

No one was in sight about the village, but that did not deceive
Thoar, who guessed that anything which transpired upon the hillside
would be witnessed by many eyes peering through the openings
between the wall logs from the dim interiors of the long buildings,
beneath whose low ceilings Phelians must spend their lives either
squatting or lying down, since there was not sufficient headroom to
permit an adult to stand erect.

"Well," said Jason, "here we are. Now, what are we going to
do?"

Thoar looked longingly at Jason's two Colts. "You have refused
to use those for fear of wasting the deaths which they spit from
their blue mouths," he said, "but with one of those we might soon
find Jana if she was here or quickly avenge her if she is not."

"Come on then," said Jason. "I would sacrifice more than my
ammunition for The Red Flower of Zoram." As he spoke he descended
from the tree and started toward the nearest Phelian dwelling.
Close behind him was Thoar and neither saw the eyes that watched
them from among the trees that grew thickly upon the river side of
the hill—cruel eyes that gleamed from whiskered faces.

AVAN, chief of the Clovi, had placed warriors
before the entrance to the cavern and as Tarzan approached it to
enter they halted him.

"Where are you going?" demanded one.

"Into the cavern," replied Tarzan.

"Why?" asked the warrior.

"I wish to sleep," replied the ape-man. "I have entered often
before and no one has ever stopped me."

"Avan has issued orders that no strangers are to enter or leave
the cavern until after the council of the warriors," exclaimed the
guard.

At this juncture Avan approached. "Let him enter," he said. "I
sent him hither, but do not let him come out again." Without a word
of comment or question the Lord of the Jungle passed into the
interior of the gloomy cavern of Clovi. It was several moments
before his eyes became accustomed to the subdued light within and
permitted him to take account of his surroundings.

That portion of the cavern which was visible and with which he
was familiar was of considerable extent. He could see the walls on
either side, and, very vaguely, a portion of the rear wall, but
adjoining that was utter darkness, suggesting that the cavern
extended further into the mountainside. Against the walls upon
pallets of dry grasses covered with hide lay many warriors and a
few women and children, almost all of whom were wrapped in slumber.
In the greater light near the entrance a group squatted engaged in
whispered conversation as, silently, he moved about the cavern
searching for the girl from Zoram. It was she who recognized him
first, attracting his attention by a low whistle.

"You have a plan of escape?" she asked as Tarzan seated himself
upon a skin beside her.

"No," he said, "all that we may do is to await developments and
take advantage of any opportunity that may present itself."

"I should think that it would be easy for you to escape," said
the girl. "They do not treat you as a prisoner; you go about among
them freely and they have permitted you to retain your
weapons."

"I am a prisoner now," he replied. "Avan just instructed the
warriors at the entrance not to permit me to leave here until after
the council of warriors had decided my fate."

"Your future does not look very bright then," said Jana, "and as
for me I already know my fate, but they shall not have me, Carb nor
any other!"

They talked together in low tones with many periods of long
silence, but when Jana turned the conversation upon the world from
which Jason had come, the silences were few and far between. She
would not let Tarzan rest, but plied him with questions, the
answers to many of which were far beyond her powers to understand.
Steam and electricity and all the countless activities of civilized
existence which are dependent upon them were utterly beyond her
powers of comprehension, as were the heavenly bodies or musical
instruments or books, and yet despite what appeared to be the
darkest depth of ignorance, to the very bottom of which she had
plumbed, she was intelligent and when she spoke of those things
pertaining to her own world with which she was familiar, she was
both interesting and entertaining.

Presently a warrior near them opened his eyes, sat up and
stretched. He looked about him and then he arose to his feet. He
walked around the apartment awakening the other warriors.

"Awaken," he said to each, "and attend the council of the
warriors."

When he approached Tarzan and Jana he recognized the former and
stopped to glare down at him.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

Tarzan arose and faced the Clovian warrior, but he did not reply
to the other's question.

"Answer me," growled Carb. "Why are you here?"

"You are not the chief," said Tarzan. "Go and ask your question
of women and children."

Carb sputtered angrily. "Go!" said Tarzan, pointing toward the
exit. For an instant the Clovian hesitated, then he continued on
around the apartment, awakening the remaining warriors.

"Now he will see that you are killed," said the girl.

"He had determined on that before," replied Tarzan. "We are no
worse off than we were."

Now they lapsed into silence, each waiting for the doom that was
to be pronounced upon them. They knew that outside upon the ledge
the warriors were sitting in a great circle and that there would be
much talking and boasting and argument before any decision was
reached, most of it unnecessary, for that has been the way with men
who make laws from time immemorial, a great advantage, however,
lying with our modern lawmakers in that they know more words than
the first ape-men.

As Tarzan and Jana waited a youth entered the cavern. He bore a
torch in the light of which he searched about the interior.
Presently he discovered Tarzan and came swiftly toward him. It was
Ovan.

"The council has reached its decision," he said. "They will kill
you and the girl goes to Carb."

Tarzan of the Apes rose to his feet. "Come," he said to Jana,
"now is as good a time as any. If we can cross the ledge and reach
the trail only a swift warrior can overtake us. And if you are my
friend," he continued, turning to Ovan, "and you have said that you
are, you will remain silent and give us our chance."

"I am your friend," replied the youth. "That is why I am here,
but you would never live to cross the ledge to the trail. There are
too many warriors and they are all prepared. They know that you are
armed and they expect that you will try to escape."

"There is no other way," said Tarzan.

"There is another way," replied the boy, "and I have come to
show it to you."

"Where?" asked Jana.

"Follow me," replied Ovan, and he started back into the remote
recesses of the cavern, which were fitfully illumined by his
flickering torch, while behind him followed Jana and the
ape-man.

The walls of the cavern narrowed, the floor rose steeply ahead
of them, so that in places it was only with considerable difficulty
that they ascended in the semi-darkness. At last Ovan halted and
held his torch high above his head revealing a small, natural
chamber, at the far end of which there was a dark fissure.

"In that dark hole," he said, "lies a trail that leads to the
summit of the mountains. Only the chief and the chief's first son
ever know of this trail. If my father learns that I have shown it
to you, he will have to kill me, but he shall never know for when
next they find me I shall be asleep upon a skin in the cavern far
below. The trail is steep and rough, but it is the only way. Go
now. This is the return I make you for having saved my life." With
that he dashed the torch to the floor, leaving them in utter
darkness. He did not speak again, but Tarzan heard the soft falls
of his sandaled feet groping their way back down toward the cavern
of the Clovi.

The ape-man reached out through the darkness and found Jana's
hand. Carefully he led her through the stygian darkness toward the
mouth of the fissure. Feeling his way step by step, groping forward
with his free hand, the ape-man finally discovered the entrance to
the trail.

Clambering upward over broken masses of jagged granite through
utter darkness, it seemed to the two fugitives that they made no
progress whatever. If time could be measured by muscular effort and
physical discomfort, the two might have guessed that they passed an
eternity in this black fissure, but at length the darkness lessened
and they knew that they were approaching the opening in the summit
of the mountains; nor was it long thereafter before they emerged
into the brilliant light of the noonday sun.

"And now," said Tarzan, "in which direction lies Zoram?"

The girl pointed. "But we cannot reach it by going back that
way," she said, "for every trail will be guarded by Carb and his
fellows. Do not think that they will let us escape so easily.
Perhaps in searching for us they may even find the fissure and
follow us here."

"This is your world," said Tarzan. "You are more familiar with
it than I. What, then, do you suggest?"

"We should descend the mountains, going directly away from
Clovi," replied Jana, "for it is in the mountains that they will
look for us. When we have reached the lowland we can turn back
along the foot of the range until we are below Zoram, but not until
then should we come back to the mountains."

The descent of the mountains was slow because neither of them
was familiar with this part of the range. Oftentimes, their way
barred by yawning chasms, they were compelled to retrace their
steps to find another way around. They ate many times and slept
thrice and thus only could Tarzan guess that they had consumed
considerable time in the descent, but what was time to them?

During the descent Tarzan had caught glimpses of a vast plain,
stretching away as far as the eye could reach. The last stage of
their descent was down a long, winding canyon, and when, at last,
they came to its mouth they found themselves upon the edge of the
plain that Tarzan had seen. It was almost treeless and from where
he stood it looked as level as a lake.

"This is the Gyor Cors," said Jana, "and may we not have the bad
fortune to meet a Gyor."

"And what is a Gyor?" asked Tarzan.

"Oh, it is a terrible creature," replied Jana. "I have never
seen one, but some of the warriors of Zoram have been to the Gyor
Cors and they have seen them. They are twice the size of a tandor
and their length is more than that of four tall men lying upon the
ground. They have a curved beak and three great horns, two above
their eyes and one above their nose. Standing upright at the backs
of their heads is a great collar of bony substance covered with
thick, horny hide, which protects them from the horns of their
fellows and spears of men. They do not eat flesh, but they are
irritable and snort-tempered, charging every creature that they see
and thus keeping the Gyor Cors for their own use."

"Theirs is a vast domain," said Tarzan, letting his eyes sweep
the illimitable expanse of pasture land that rolled on and on,
curving slowly upward into the distant haze, "and your description
of them suggests that they have few enemies who would care to
dispute their dominion."

"Only the Horibs," replied Jana. "They hunt them for their flesh
and hide."

"What are Horibs?" asked Tarzan.

The girl shuddered. "The snake people," she whispered in an awed
tone.

"Snake people," repeated Tarzan, "and what are they?"

"Let us not speak of them. They are horrible. They are worse
than the Gyors. Their blood is cold and men say that they have no
hearts, for they do not possess any of the characteristics that men
admire, knowing not friendship or sympathy or love."

Along the bottom of the canyon through which they had descend, a
mountain torrent had cut a deep gorge, the sides of which were so
precipitous that they found it expedient to follow the stream down
into the plain in order to discover an easier crossing, since the
stream lay between them and Zoram.

They had proceeded for about a mile below the mouth of the
canyon. Around them were low rolling hills which gradually merged
with the plain below. Here and there were scattered clumps of
trees, to their knees grew the gently waving grasses that rendered
the Gyor Cors a paradise for the huge herbivorous dinosaurs. The
noonday sun shone down upon a scene of peace and quiet, yet Tarzan
of the Apes was restless. The apparent absence of animal life
seemed almost uncanny to one familiar with the usual teeming
activity of Pellucidar, yet the ape-man knew that there were
creatures about, and it was the strange and unfamiliar scent spoors
carried to his nostrils that aroused within him a foreboding of ill
omen. Familiar odors had no such effect upon him, but here were
scents that he could not place, strangely disagreeable in the
nostrils of man. They suggested the scent spoor of Histah the
snake, but they were not his.

For Jana's sake Tarzan wished that they might quickly find a
crossing and ascend again to the higher levels on their journey to
Zoram, for there the creatures would be well known to them, and the
dangers which they portended familiar dangers with which they were
prepared to cope, but the vertical banks of the raging torrent as
yet offered no means of descent and now they saw that the
appearance of flatness which distance had imparted to the great
Gyor Cors was deceptive, since it was cut by ravines and broken by
depressions, some of which were of considerable extent and depth.
Presently a lateral ravine, opening into the now comparatively
shallow gorge of the river, necessitated a detour which took them
directly away from Zoram. They had proceeded for about a mile in
this direction when they discovered a crossing and as they emerged
upon the opposite side the girl touched Tarzan's arm and pointed.
The thing that she saw he had seen simultaneously.

"A Gyor," whispered the girl. "Let us lie down and hide in this
tall grass."

"He has not seen us yet," said Tarzan, "and he may not come in
this direction."

No description of the beast looming tremendously before them
could convey an adequate impression of its titanic proportions or
its frightful mien. At the first glance Tarzan was impressed by its
remarkable likeness to the Gryfs of Pal-ul-don. It had the two
large horns above the eyes, a medial horn on the nose, a horny beak
and a great, horny hood or transverse crest over the neck, and its
coloration was similar but more subdued, the predominant note being
a slatey gray with yellowish belly and face. The blue bands around
the eyes were less well marked and the red of the hood and the bony
protuberances along the spine were less brilliant than in the Gryf.
That it was herbivorous, a fact that he had learned from Jana,
convinced him that he was looking upon an almost unaltered type of
the gigantic triceratops that had, with its fellow dinosaurs, ruled
the ancient Jurassic world.

Jana had thrown herself prone among the grasses and was urging
Tarzan to do likewise. Crouching low, his eyes just above the
grasses, Tarzan watched the huge dinosaur.

"I think he has caught our scent," he said. "He is standing with
his head up, looking about him; now he is trotting around in a
circle. He is very light on his feet for a beast of such enormous
size. There, he has caught a scent, but it is not ours; the wind is
not in the right direction. There is something approaching from our
left, but it is still at a considerable distance. I can just hear
it, a faint suggestion of something moving. The Gyor is looking in
that direction now. Whatever is coming is coming swiftly. I can
tell by the rapidly increasing volume of sound, and there are more
than one—there are many. He is moving forward now to
investigate, but he will pass at a considerable distance to our
left." Tarzan watched the Gyor and listened to the sound coming
from the, as yet, invisible creatures that were approaching.
"Whatever is approaching is coming along the bottom of the ravine
we just crossed," he whispered. "They will pass directly behind
us."

Jana remained hiding low in the grasses. She did not wish to
tempt Fate by revealing even the top of her head to attract the
attention of the Gyor. "Perhaps we had better try to crawl away
while his attention is attracted elsewhere," she suggested.

"They are coming out of the ravine," whispered Tarzan. "They are
coming up over the edge—a number of men—but in the name
of God what is it that they are riding?"

Jana raised her eyes above the level of the grasses and looked
in the direction that Tarzan was gazing. She shuddered. "They are
not men," she said, "they are the Horibs and the things upon the
backs of which they ride are Gorobors. If they see us we are lost.
Nothing in the world can escape the Gorobors, for there is nothing
in all Pellucidar so swift as they. Lie still. Our only chance is
that they may not discover us."

At sight of the Horibs the Gyor emitted a terrific bellow that
shook the ground and, lowering his head, he charged straight for
them. Fully fifty of the Horibs on their horrid mounts had emerged
from the ravine. Tarzan could see that the riders were armed with
long lances—pitiful and inadequate weapons, he thought, with
which to face an enraged triceratops. But it soon became apparent
that the Horibs did not intend to meet that charge head-on.
Wheeling to their right they formed in single file behind their
leader and then for the first time Tarzan had an exhibition of the
phenomenal speed of the huge lizards upon which they were mounted,
which is comparable only to the lightning-like rapidity of a tiny
desert lizard known as a swift.

Following tactics similar to those of the plains Indians of
western America, the Horibs were circling their prey. The bellowing
Gyor, aroused to a frenzy of rage, charged first in one direction
and then another, but the Gorobors darted from his path so swiftly
that he never could overtake them. Panting and blowing, he
presently came to bay and then the Horibs drew their circle closer,
whirling dizzily about him, while Tarzan watched the amazing scene,
wondering by what means they might ever hope to dispatch the ten
tons of incarnate fury that wheeled first this way and then that at
the center of their circle.

Presently a Horib darted in close to the Gyor at such speed that
the mount and the rider were little more than a blur. The Gyor
wheeled to meet him, head down, the three terrible horns set to
impale him, and then two other Horibs darted in from the rear upon
either side.

As swiftly as they had darted in all three wheeled and were out
again, part of the racing circle, but in the sides of the Gyor they
had left two lances deeply imbedded. The fury of the wounded
triceratops transcended any of his previous demonstrations. His
bellowing became a hoarse, coughing scream as once again he lowered
his head and charged.

This time he did not turn and charge in another direction as he
had in the past, but kept on in a straight line, possibly in the
hope of breaking through the encircling Horibs, and to his dismay
the ape-man saw that he and Jana were directly in the path of the
charging beast. If the Horibs did not turn him, they were lost.

A dozen of the reptile-men darted in upon the rear of the Gyor.
A dozen more lances sank deeply into its body, proving sufficient
to turn him in an effort to avenge himself upon those who had
inflicted these new hurts.

This charge had carried the Gyor within fifty feet of Tarzan and
Jana. It had given the ape-man an uncomfortable moment, but its
results were almost equally disastrous for it brought the circling
Horibs close to their position.

The Gyor stood now with lowered head, breathing heavily and
bleeding from more than a dozen wounds. A Horib now rode slowly
toward him, approaching him directly from in front. The attention
of the triceratops was centered wholly upon this single adversary
as two more moved toward him diagonally from the rear, one on
either side, but in such a manner that they were concealed from his
view by the great transverse crest encircling his neck behind the
horns and eyes. The three approached thus to within about fifty
feet of the brute, and then those in the rear darted forward
simultaneously at terrific speed, leaning well forward upon their
mounts, their lances lowered. At the same instant each struck
heavily upon either side of the Gyor, driving their spears far in.
So close did they come to their prey that their mounts struck the
shoulders of the Gyor as they turned and darted out again.

For an instant the great creature stood reeling in its tracks
and then it slumped forward heavily and rolled over upon its
side—the final lances had pierced its heart.

Tarzan was glad that it was over as he had momentarily feared
discovery by the circling Horibs and he was congratulating himself
upon their good fortune when the entire band of snake men wheeled
their mounts and raced swiftly in the direction of their hiding
place. Once more they formed their circle, but this time Tarzan and
Jana were at its center. Evidently the Horibs had seen them, but
had temporarily ignored them until after they had dispatched the
Gyor.

"We shall have to fight," said Tarzan, and as concealment was no
longer possible he arose to his feet.

"Yes," said Jana, arising to stand beside him. "We shall have to
fight, but the end will be the same. There are fifty of them and we
are but two."

Tarzan fitted an arrow to his bow. The Horibs were circling
slowly about them inspecting their new prey. Finally they came
closer and halted their mounts, facing the two.

Now for the first time Tarzan was able to obtain a good view of
the snake-men and their equally hideous mounts. The conformation of
the Horibs was almost identical to man insofar as the torso and
extremities were concerned. Their three-toed feet and five-toed
hands were those of reptiles. The head and face resembled a snake,
but pointed ears and two short horns gave a grotesque appearance
that was at the same time hideous. The arms were better
proportioned than the legs, which were quite shapeless. The entire
body was covered with scales, although those upon the hands, feet
and face were so minute as to give the impression of bare skin, a
resemblance which was further emphasized by the fact that these
portions of the body were a much lighter color, approximating the
shiny dead whiteness of a snake's belly. They wore a single
apron-like garment fashioned from a piece of very heavy hide,
apparently that of some gigantic reptile. This garment was really a
piece of armor, its sole purpose being, as Tarzan later learned, to
cover the soft, white bellies of the Horibs. Upon the breast of
each garment was a strange device—an eight-pronged cross with
a circle in the center. Around his waist each Horib wore a leather
belt, which supported a scabbard in which was inserted a bone
knife. About each wrist and above each elbow was a band or
bracelet. These completed their apparel and ornaments. In addition
to his knife each Horib carried a long lance shod with bone. They
sat on their grotesque mounts with their toes locked behind the
elbows of the Gorobors, anomodont reptiles of the Triassic, known
to paleontologists as Parcisauri. Many of these creatures measured
ten feet in length, though they stood low upon squat and powerful
legs.

As Tarzan gazed in fascination upon the Horibs, whose "blood ran
cold and who had no hearts," he realized that he might be gazing
upon one of the vagaries of evolution, or possibly upon a replica
of some form that had once existed upon the outer crust and that
had blazed the trail that some, to us, unknown creature must have
blazed from the age of reptiles to the age of man. Nor did it seem
to him, after reflection, any more remarkable that a man-like
reptile might evolve from reptiles than that birds should have done
so or, as scientific discoveries are now demonstrating, mammals
must have.

These thoughts passed quickly, almost instantaneously, through
his mind as the Horibs sat there with their beady, lidless eyes
fastened upon them, but if Tarzan had been astounded by the
appearance of these creatures the emotion thus aroused was nothing
compared with the shock he received when one of them spoke,
addressing him in the common language of the gilaks of
Pellucidar.

JASON GRIDLEY ran swiftly up the hill toward the
Phelian village in which he hoped to find The Red Flower of Zoram
and at his side was Thoar, ready with spear and knife to rescue or
avenge his sister, while behind them, concealed by the underbrush
that grew beneath the trees along the river's bank, a company of
swarthy, bearded men watched the two.

To Thoar's surprise no defending warriors rushed from the
building they were approaching, nor did any sound come from the
interior. "Be careful," he cautioned Jason, "we may be running into
a trap," and the American, profiting by the advice of his
companion, advanced more cautiously. To the very entrance of the
building they came and as yet no opposition to their advance had
manifested itself.

Jason stopped and looked through the low doorway, then,
stooping, he entered with Thoar at his heels.

"There is no one here," said Jason. "The building is
deserted."

"Better luck in the next one then," said Thoar, but there was no
one in the next building, nor in the next, nor in any of the
buildings of the Phelian village.

"They have all gone," said Jason.

"Yes," replied Thoar, "but they will return. Let us go down
among the trees at the riverside and wait for them there in
hiding."

Unconscious of danger, the two walked down the hillside and
entered the underbrush that grew luxuriantly beneath the trees.
They followed a narrow trail, worn by Phelian sandals.

Scarcely had the foliage closed about them when a dozen men
sprang upon them and bore them to the ground. In an instant they
were disarmed and their wrists bound behind their backs, then they
were jerked roughly to their feet and Jason Gridley's eyes went
wide as they got the first glimpse of his captors.

"Well, for Pete's sake!" he exclaimed. "I have learned to look
with comparative composure upon woolly rhinoceroses, mammoths,
trachodons, pterodactyls and dinosaurs, but I never expected to see
Captain Kidd, Lafitte and Sir Henry Morgan in the heart of
Pellucidar."

To his surprise he reverted to his native tongue, which, of
course, none of the others understood.

"What language is that?" demanded one of their captors. "Who are
you and from what country do you come?"

"That is good old American, from the U. S. A.," replied Jason,
"but who the devil are you and why have you captured us?" and then,
turning to Thoar, "these are not the Phelians, are they?"

"No," replied Thoar, "These are strange men, such as I have
never before seen."

"We know who you are," said one of the bearded men. "We know the
country from which you come. Do not try to deceive us."

"Very well, then, if you know, turn me loose, for you must know
that we haven't a war on with anyone."

"Your country is always at war with Korsar," replied the
speaker. "You are a Sarian. I know it by the weapons that you
carry. The moment I saw them, I knew that you were from distant
Sari. The Cid will be glad to have you and so will Bulf. Perhaps,"
he added, turning to one of his fellows, "this is Tanar, himself.
Did you see him when he was a prisoner in Korsar?"

"No, I was away upon a cruise," replied the other. "I did not
see him, but if this is indeed he we shall be well rewarded."

"We might as well return to the ship now," said the first
speaker. "There is no use waiting any longer for these flat-footed
natives with but one chance in a thousand of finding a good-looking
woman among them."

"They told us further down the river that these people sometimes
captured women from Zoram. Perhaps it would be well to wait."

"No," said the other, "I should like well enough to see one of
these women from Zoram that I have heard of all my life, but the
natives will not return as long as we are in the vicinity. We have
been gone from the ship too long now and if I know the captain, he
will be wanting to slit a few throats by the time we get back."

Moored to a tree along the shore and guarded by five other
Korsars was a ship's longboat, but of a style that was reminiscent
of Jason's boyhood reading as were the bearded men with their
bizarre costumes, their great pistols and cutlasses and their
ancient arquebuses.

The prisoners were bundled into the boat, the Korsars entered
and the craft was pushed off into the stream, which here was narrow
and swift.

As the current bore them rapidly along Jason had an opportunity
to examine his captors. They were as villainous a looking crew as
he had ever imagined outside of fiction and were more typically
piratical than the fiercest pirates of his imagination. What with
earrings and, in some instances, nose rings of gold, with the gay
handkerchiefs bound about their heads and body sashes around their
waists, they would have presented a gorgeous and colorful picture
at a distance sufficiently great to transform their dirt and
patches into a pleasing texture.

Although in the story of Tanar of Pellucidar that Jason had
received by radio from Perry, he had become familiar with the
appearance and nature of the Korsars, yet he now realized that
heretofore he had accepted them more as he had accepted the pirates
of history and of his boyhood reading—as fictional or, at
best, legendary—and not men of flesh and bone such as he saw
before him, their mouths filled with oaths and coarse jokes, the
grime and filth of reality marking them as real human beings.

In these savage Korsars, their boat, their apparel and their
ancient firearms, Jason saw conclusive proof of their descent from
men of the outer crust and realized how they must have carried to
the mind of David Innes an overwhelming conviction of the existence
of a polar opening leading from Pellucidar to the outer world.

While Thoar was disheartened by the fate that had thrown them
into the hands of these strange people, Jason was not at all sure
but that it might prove a stroke of fortune for himself, as from
the conversation and comments that he had heard since their capture
it seemed reasonable to assume that they were to be taken to
Korsar, the city in which David Innes was confined and which was,
therefore, the first goal of their expedition to effect the rescue
of the Emperor of Pellucidar.

That he would arrive there alone and a prisoner were not in
themselves causes for rejoicing; yet, on the whole, he would be no
worse off than to remain wandering aimlessly through a country
filled with unknown dangers without the faintest shadow of a hope
of ever being able to locate his fellows. Now, at least, he was
almost certain of being transported to a place that they also were
attempting to reach and thus the chances of a reunion were so much
the greater.

The stream down which they floated wound through a swampy
forest, crossing numerous lagoons that sometimes were of a size
that raised them to the dignity of lakes. Everywhere the waters and
the banks teemed with reptilian life, suggesting to Jason Gridley
that he was reviewing a scene such as might have been enacted in a
Mesozoic paradise countless ages before upon the outer crust. So
numerous and oftentimes so colossal and belligerent were the savage
reptiles that the descent of the river became a running fight,
during which the Korsars were constantly upon the alert and
frequently were compelled to discharge their arquebuses in defense
of their lives. More often than not the noise of the weapons
frightened off the attacking reptiles, but occasionally one would
persist in its attack until it had been killed; nor was the
possibility ever remote that in one of these encounters some fierce
and brainless saurian might demolish their craft and with its
fellows devour the crew.

Jason and Thoar had been placed in the middle of the boat, where
they squatted upon the bottom, their wrists still secured behind
their backs. Close to Jason was a Korsar whose fellows addressed
him as Lajo. There was something about this fellow that attracted
Jason's particular attention. Perhaps it was his more open
countenance or a less savage and profane demeanor. He had not
joined the others in the coarse jokes that were directed against
their captives; in fact, he paid little attention to anything other
than the business of defending the boat against the attacking
monsters.

There seemed to be no one in command of the party, all matters
being discussed among them and in this way a decision arrived at,
yet Jason had noticed that the others listened attentively when
Lajo spoke, which was seldom, though always intelligently and to
the point. Guided by the result of these observations he selected
Lajo as the most logical Korsar through whom to make a request. At
the first opportunity, therefore, he attracted the man's
attention.

"What do you want?" asked Lajo.

"Who is in command here?" asked Jason.

"No one," replied the Korsar. "Our officer was killed on the way
up. Why do you ask?"

"I want the bonds removed from our wrists," replied Jason. "We
cannot escape. We are unarmed and outnumbered and, therefore,
cannot harm you; while in the event that the boat is destroyed or
capsized by any of these reptiles we shall be helpless with our
wrists tied behind our backs."

Lajo drew his knife.

"What are you going to do?" asked one of the other Korsars who
had been listening to the conversation.

"I am going to cut their bonds," replied Lajo. "There is nothing
to be gained by keeping them bound."

"Who are you to say that their bonds shall be cut?" demanded the
other belligerently.

"Who are you to say that they shall not?" returned Lajo quietly,
moving toward the prisoners.

"I'll show you who I am," shouted the other, whipping out his
knife and advancing toward Lajo.

There was no hesitation. Like a panther Lajo swung upon his
adversary, striking up the other's knife-hand with his left forearm
and at the same time plunging his villainous looking blade to the
hilt in the other's breast. Voicing a single blood-curdling scream
the man sank lifeless to the bottom of the boat. Lajo wrenched his
knife from the corpse, wiped it upon his adversary's shirt and
quietly cut the bonds that confined the wrists of Thoar and Jason.
The other Korsars looked on, apparently unmoved by the killing of
their fellow, except for a coarse joke or two at the expense of the
dead man and a grunt of approbation for Lajo's act.

The killer removed the weapons from the body of the dead man and
cast them aft out of reach of the prisoners, then he motioned to
the corpse. "Throw it, overboard," he commanded, addressing Jason
and Thoar.

"Wait," cried another member of the crew. "I want his
boots."

"His sash is mine," cried another, and presently half a dozen of
them were quarreling over the belongings of the corpse like a pack
of dogs over a bone. Lajo took no part in this altercation and
presently the few wretched belongings that had served to cover the
nakedness of the dead man were torn from his corpse and divided
among them by the simple expedient of permitting the stronger to
take what they could; then Jason and Thoar eased the naked body
over the side, where it was immediately seized upon by voracious
denizens of the river.

Interminable, to an unknown destination, seemed the journey to
Jason. They ate and slept many times and still the river wound
through the endless swamp. The luxuriant vegetation and flowering
blooms which lined the banks long since had ceased to interest,
their persistent monotony making them almost hateful to the
eyes.

Jason could not but wonder at the superhuman efforts that must
have been necessary to row this large, heavy boat upstream in the
face of all the terrific assaults which must have been launched
upon it by the reptilian hordes that contested every mile of the
downward journey.

But presently the landscape changed, the river widened and the
low swamp gave way to rolling hills. The forests, which still
joined the banks, were freer from underbrush, suggesting that they
might be the feeding grounds of droves of herbivorous animals, a
theory that was soon substantiated by sight of grazing herds, among
which Jason recognized red deer, bison, bos, and several other
species of herbivorous animals. The forest upon the right bank was
open and sunny and with its grazing herds presented a cheerful
aspect of warmth and life, but the forest upon the left bank was
dark and gloomy. The foliage of the trees, which grew to tremendous
proportions, was so dense as practically to shut out the sunlight,
the space between the boles giving the impression of long, dark
aisles, gloomy and forbidding.

There were fewer reptiles in the stream here, but the Korsars
appeared unusually nervous and apprehensive of danger after they
entered this stretch of the river. Previously they had been
drifting with the current, using but a single oar, scull fashion,
from the stern to keep the nose of the boat pointed downstream, but
now they manned the oars, pressing Jason and Thoar into service to
row with the others. Loaded arquebuses lay beside the oarsmen,
while in the bow and stern armed men were constantly upon watch.
They paid little attention to the right bank of the river, but
toward the dark and gloomy left bank they directed their nervous,
watchful gaze. Jason wondered what it was that they feared, but he
had no opportunity to inquire and there was no respite from the
rowing, at least not for him or Thoar, though the Korsars
alternated between watching and rowing.

Between oars and current they were making excellent progress,
though whether they were close to the end of the danger zone or
not, Jason had no means of knowing any more than he could guess the
nature of the menace which must certainly threaten them if aught
could be judged by the attitude of the Korsars.

The two prisoners were upon the verge of exhaustion when Lajo
noticed their condition and relieved them from the oars. How long
they had been rowing, Jason could not determine, although he knew
that while no one had either eaten or slept, since they had entered
this stretch of the river, the time must have been considerable.
The distance they had come he estimated roughly at something over a
hundred miles, and he and Thoar had been continuously at the oars
during the entire period, without food or sleep, but they had
barely thrown themselves to the bottom of the boat when a cry,
vibrant with excitement, arose from the bow. "There they are!"
shouted the man, and instantly all was excitement aboard the
boat.

"Keep to the oars!" shouted Lajo. "Our best chance is to run
through them."

Although almost too spent with fatigue to find interest even in
impending death, Jason dragged himself to a sitting position that
raised his eyes above the level of the gunwales of the boat. At
first he could not even vaguely classify the horde of creatures
swimming out upon the bosom of the placid river with the evident
intention of intercepting them, but presently he saw that they were
man-like creatures riding upon the backs of hideous reptiles. They
bore long lances and their scaly mounts sped through the waters at
incredible speed. As the boat approached them he saw that the
creatures were not men, though they had the forms of men, but were
grotesque and horrid reptiles with the heads of lizards to whose
naturally frightful mien, pointed ears and short horns added a
certain horrid grotesquery.

"My God!" he exclaimed. "What are they?" Thoar, who had also
dragged himself to a sitting posture, shuddered. "They are the
Horibs," he said. "It is better to die than to fall into their
clutches." Carried downward by the current and urged on by the long
sweeps and its own terrific momentum, the heavy boat shot straight
toward the hideous horde. The distance separating them was rapidly
closing; the boat was almost upon the leading Horib when an
arquebus in the bow spoke. Its loud report broke the menacing
silence that had overhung the river like a pall. Directly in front
of the boat's prow the horde of Horibs separated and a moment later
they were racing along on either side of the craft. Arquebuses were
belching smoke and fire, scattering the bits of iron and pebbles
with which they were loaded among the hissing enemy, but for every
Horib that fell there were two to take its place.

Now they withdrew to a little distance, but with apparently no
effort whatever their reptilian mounts kept pace with the boat and
then, one after another on either side, a rider would dart in and
cast his lance, nor apparently ever did one miss its mark. So
deadly was their aim that the Korsars were compelled to abandon
their oars and drop down into the bottom of the boat, raising
themselves above the gunwales only long enough to fire their
arquebuses, when they would again drop down into concealment to
reload. But even these tactics could not preserve them for long,
since the Horibs, darting in still closer to the side of the boat,
could reach over the edge and lance the inmates. Straight to the
muzzles of the arquebuses they came, apparently entirely devoid of
any conception of fear; great holes were blown entirely through the
bodies of some, others were decapitated, while more than a score
lost a hand or an arm, yet still they came.

Presently one succeeded in casting the noose of a long leather
rope over a cleat upon the gunwale and instantly several of the
Horibs seized it and headed their mounts toward the river's
bank.

Practically exhausted and without weapons to defend themselves,
Jason and Thoar had remained lying upon the bottom of the boat
almost past caring what fate befell them. Half covered by the
corpses of the Korsars that had fallen, they lay in a pool of
blood. About them arquebuses still roared amid screams and curses,
and above all rose the shrill, hissing screech that seemed to be
the war cry of the Horibs.

The boat was dragged to shore and the rope made fast about the
bole of a tree, though three times the Korsars had cut the line and
three times the Horibs had been forced to replace it.

There was only a handful of the crew who had not been killed or
wounded when the Horibs left their mounts and swarmed over the
gunwales to fall upon their prey. Cutlasses, knives and arquebuses
did their deadly work, but still the slimy snake-men came, crawling
over the bodies of their dead to fall upon the survivors until the
latter were practically buried by greater numbers.

When the battle was over there were but three Korsars who had
escaped death or serious wounds—Lajo was one of them. The
Horibs bound their wrists and took them ashore, after which they
started unloading the dead and wounded from the boat, killing the
more seriously wounded with their knives. Coming at last upon Jason
and Thoar and finding them unwounded, they bound them as they had
the living Korsars and placed them with the other prisoners on the
shore.

The battle over, the prisoners secured, the Horibs now fell upon
the corpses of the dead, nor did they rest until they had devoured
them all, while Jason and his fellow prisoners sat nauseated with
horror during the grizly feast. Even the Korsars, cruel and
heartless as they were, shuddered at the sight.

"Why do you suppose they are saving us?" asked Jason.

Lajo shook his head. "I do not know," he said.

"Doubtless to feed us to their women and children," said Thoar.
"They say that they keep their human prisoners and fatten
them."

"You know what they are? You have seen them before?" Lajo asked
Thoar.

"Yes, I know what they are," said Thoar, "but these are the
first that I have ever seen. They are the Horibs, the snake people.
They dwell between the Rela Am and the Gyor Cors."

As Jason watched the Horibs at their grizly feast, he became
suddenly conscious of a remarkable change that was taking place in
their appearance. When he had first seen them and all during the
battle they had been of a ghastly bluish color, the hands, feet and
faces being several shades paler than the balance of the body, but
as they settled down to their gory repast this hue gradually faded
to be replaced by a reddish tinge, which varied in intensity in
different individuals, the faces and extremities of a few of whom
became almost crimson as the feast progressed.

If the appearance and blood-thirsty ferocity of the creatures
appalled him, he was no less startled when he first heard them
converse in the common language of the men of Pellucidar.

The general conformation of the creatures, their weapons, which
consisted of long lances and stone knives, the apron-like apparel
which they wore and the evident attempt at ornamentation as
exemplified by the insignia upon the breasts of their garments and
the armlets which they wore, all tended toward establishing a
suggestion of humanity that was at once grotesque and horrible, but
when to these other attributes was added human speech the likeness
to man created an impression that was indescribably repulsive.

So powerful was the fascination that the creatures aroused in
the mind of Jason that he could divert neither his thoughts nor his
eyes from them. He noticed that while the majority of them were
about six feet in height, there were many much smaller, ranging
downward to about four feet, while there was one tremendous
individual that must have been fully nine feet tall; yet all were
proportioned identically and the difference in height did not have
the appearance of being at all related to a difference in age,
except that the scales upon the largest of them were considerably
thicker and coarser. Later, however, he was to learn that
differences in size predicated differences in age, the growth of
these creatures being governed by the same law which governs the
growth of reptiles, which, unlike mammals, continue to grow
throughout the entire duration of their lives.

When they had gorged themselves upon the flesh of the Korsars,
the Horibs lay down, but whether to sleep or not Jason never knew
since their lidless eyes remained constantly staring. And now a new
phenomenon occurred. Gradually the reddish tinge faded from their
bodies to be replaced by a dull brownish gray, which harmonized
with the ground upon which they lay.

Exhausted by his long tour at the oars and by the horrors that
he had witnessed, Jason gradually drifted off into deep slumber,
which was troubled by hideous dreams in which he saw Jana in the
clutches of a Horib. The creature was attempting to devour The Red
Flower of Zoram, while Jason struggled with the bonds that secured
him.

He was awakened by a sharp pain in his shoulder and opening his
eyes he saw one of the homosaurians, as he had mentally dubbed
them, standing over him, prodding him with the point of his sharp
lance. "Make less noise," said the creature, and Jason realized
that he must have been raving in his sleep.

The other Horibs were rising from the ground, voicing strange
whistling hisses, and presently from the waters of the river and
from the surrounding aisles of the gloomy forest their hideous
mounts came trooping in answer to the summons.

"Stand up!" said the Horib who had awakened Jason. "I am going
to remove your bonds," he continued. "You cannot escape. If you try
to you will be killed. Follow me," he then commanded after he had
removed the thongs which secured Jason's wrists.

Jason accompanied the creature into the midst of the herd of
periosauri that was milling about, snapping and hissing, along the
shore of the river.

Although the Gorobors all looked alike to Jason, it was evident
that the Horibs differentiated between individuals among them for
he who was leading Jason threaded his way through the mass of slimy
bodies until he reached the side of a particular individual.

"Get up," he said, motioning Jason to mount the creature. "Sit
well forward on its neck."

It was with a sensation of the utmost disgust that Jason vaulted
onto the back of the Gorobor. The feel of its cold, clammy, tough
hide against his naked legs sent a chilly shudder up his spine. The
reptile-man mounted behind him and presently the entire company was
on the march, each of the other prisoners being mounted in front of
a Horib.

Into the gloomy forest the strange cavalcade marched, down dark,
winding corridors overhung with dense vegetation, much of which was
of a dead pale cast through lack of sunlight. A clammy chill,
unusual in Pellucidar, pervaded the atmosphere and a feeling of
depression weighed heavily upon the prisoners.

"What are you going to do with us?" asked Jason after they had
proceeded in silence for some distance.

"You will be fed upon eggs until you are fit to be eaten by the
females and the little ones," replied the Horib. "They tire of fish
and Gyor flesh. It is not often that we get as much gilak meat as
we have just had."

Jason relapsed into silence, discovering that, as far as he was
concerned, the Horib was conversationally a total loss and for long
after the horror of the creature's reply weighed upon his mind. It
was not that he feared death; it was the idea of being fattened for
slaughter that was peculiarly abhorrent.

As they rode between the never-ending trees he tried to
speculate as to the origin of these gruesome creatures. It seemed
to him that they might constitute a supreme effort upon the part of
Nature to reach a higher goal by a less devious route than that
which evolution had pursued upon the outer crust from the age of
reptiles upwards to the age of man.

During the march Jason caught occasional glimpses of Thoar and
the other prisoners, though he had no opportunity to exchange words
with them, and after what seemed an interminable period of time the
cavalcade emerged from the forest into the sunlight and Jason saw
in the distance the shimmering blue waters of an inland lake. As
they approached its shores he discerned throngs of Horibs, some
swimming or lolling in the waters of the lake, while others lay or
squatted upon the muddy bank. As the company arrived among them
they showed only a cold, reptilian interest in the returning
warriors, though some of the females and young evinced a suggestive
interest in the prisoners.

The adult females differed but slightly from the males. Aside
from the fact that they were hornless and went naked, Jason could
discover no other distinguishing feature. He saw no signs of a
village, nor any indication of arts or crafts other than those
necessary to produce their crude weapons and the simple apron-like
armor that the warriors wore to protect the soft skin of their
bellies.

The prisoners were now dragged from their mounts and herded
together by several of the warriors, who conducted them along the
edge of the lake toward a slightly higher bank.

On the way they passed a number of females laying eggs, which
they deposited in the soft, warm mud just above the water line,
covering them lightly with mud, afterwards pushing a slender stake
into the ground at the spot to mark the nest. All along the shore
at this point were hundreds of such stakes and further on Jason saw
several tiny Horibs, evidently but just hatched, wriggling upward
out of the mud. No one paid the slightest attention to them as they
stumbled and reeled about trying to accustom themselves to the use
of their limbs, upon all four of which they went at first, like
tiny, grotesque lizards.

Arrived at the higher bank the warrior in charge of Thoar, who
was in the lead, suddenly clapped his hand over the prisoner's
mouth, pinching Thoar's nose tightly between his thumb and first
finger, and, without other preliminaries, dove head foremost into
the waters of the lake carrying his victim with him.

Jason was horrified as he saw his friend and companion disappear
beneath the muddy waters, which, after a moment of violent
agitation, settled down again, leaving only an ever widening
circular ripple to mark the spot where the two had disappeared. An
instant later another Horib dove in with Lajo and in rapid
succession the other two Korsars shared a similar fate.

With a superhuman effort Jason sought to tear himself free from
the clutches of his captor, but the cold, clammy hands held him
tightly. One of them was suddenly clapped over his mouth and nose
and an instant later he felt the warm waters of the lake close
about him.

Still struggling to free himself he was conscious that the Horib
was carrying him swiftly beneath the surface. Presently he felt
slimy mud beneath him, along which his body was being dragged. His
lungs cried out in tortured agony for air, his senses reeled and
momentarily all went black before him, though no blacker than the
stygian darkness of the hole into which he was being dragged, and
then the hand was removed from his mouth and nose; mechanically his
lungs gasped for air and as consciousness slowly returned Jason
realized that he was not drowned, but that he was lying upon a bed
of mud inhaling air and not water.

Total darkness surrounded him; he felt a clammy body scrape
against his, and then another and another. There was a sound of
splashing, gurgling water and then silence—the silence of the
tomb.

STANDING upon the edge of the great Gyor plains
surrounded by armed creatures, who had but just demonstrated their
ability to destroy one of the most powerful and ferocious creatures
that evolution has ever succeeded in producing, Tarzan of the Apes
was yet loath to lay down his weapons, as he had been instructed,
and surrender without resistance, to an unknown fate.

"What do you intend to do with us?" he demanded of the Horib who
had ordered him to lay down his weapons.

"We shall take you to our village where you will be well-fed,"
replied the creature. "You cannot escape us; no one escapes the
Horibs."

The ape-man hesitated. The Red Flower of Zoram moved closer to
his side. "Let us go with them," she whispered. "We cannot escape
them now; there are too many of them. Possibly if we go with them
we shall find an opportunity later."

Tarzan nodded and then he turned to the Horib. "We are ready,"
he said.

Mounted upon the necks of Gorobor, each in front of a Horib
warrior, they were carried across a corner of the Gyor Cors to the
same gloomy forest through which Jason and Thoar had been taken,
though they entered it from a different direction.

Rising at the east end of the Mountains of the Thipdars, a river
flows in a southeasterly direction entering upon its course the
gloomy forest of the Horibs, through which it runs down to the Rela
Am, or River of Darkness. It was near the confluence of the two
rivers that the Korsars had been attacked by the Horibs and it was
along the upper reaches of the same river that Tarzan and Jana were
being conducted downstream toward the village of the
lizard-men.

The lake of the Horibs lies at a considerable distance from the
eastern end of the mountains of the Thipdars, perhaps five hundred
miles, and where there is no time and distances are measured by
food and sleep it makes little difference whether places are
separated by five miles or five hundred. One man might travel a
thousand miles without mishap, while another, in attempting to go
one mile, might be killed, in which event the one mile would be
much further than the thousand miles, for, in fact, it would have
proved an interminable distance to him who had essayed it in this
instance.

As Tarzan and Jana rode through the dismal forest, hundreds of
miles away Jason Gridley drew himself to a sitting position in such
utter darkness that he could almost feel it. "God!" he
exclaimed.

"Who spoke?" asked a voice out of the darkness, and Jason
recognized the voice as Thoar's.

"It is I, Jason," replied Gridley.

"Where are we?" demanded another voice. It was Lajo.

"It is dark. I wish they had killed us," said a fourth
voice.

"Don't worry," said a fifth, "we shall be killed soon
enough."

"We are all here," said Jason. "I thought we were all done for
when I saw them drag you into the water one by one."

"Where are we?" demanded one of the Korsars. "What sort of hole
is this into which they have put us?"

"In the world from which I come," said Jason, "there are huge
reptiles, called crocodiles, who build such nests or retreats in
the banks of rivers, just above the water line, but the only
entrance leads down below the waters of the river. It is such a
hole as that into which we have been dragged."

"Why can't we swim out again?" asked Thoar.

"Perhaps we could," replied Jason, "but they would see us and
bring us back again."

"Are we going to lie here in the mud and wait to be
slaughtered?" demanded Lajo.

"No," said Jason, "but let us work out a reasonable plan of
escape. It will gain us nothing to act rashly."

For some time the men sat in silence, which was finally broken
by the American. "Do you think we are alone here?" he asked in a
low tone. "I have listened carefully, but I have heard no sound
other than our own breathing."

"Nor I," said Thoar.

"Come closer then," said Jason, and the five men groped through
the darkness and arranged themselves in a circle, where they
squatted leaning forward till their heads touched. "I have a plan,"
continued Jason. "When they were bringing us here I noticed that
the forest grew close to the lake at this point. If we can make a
tunnel into the forest, we may be able to escape."

"Which way is the forest?" asked Lajo.

"That is something that we can only guess at," replied Jason.
"We may guess wrong, but we must take the chance. But I think that
it is reasonable to assume that the direction of the forest is
directly opposite the entrance through which we were carried into
this hole."

"Let us start digging at once," exclaimed one of the
Korsars.

"Wait until I locate the entrance," said Thoar.

He crawled away upon his hands and knees, groping through the
darkness and the mud. Presently he announced that he had found the
opening, and from the direction of his voice the others knew where
to start digging.

All were filled with enthusiasm, for success seemed almost
within the range of possibility, but now they were confronted with
the problem of the disposal of the dirt which they excavated from
their tunnel. Jason instructed Lajo to remain at the point where
they intended excavating and then had the others crawl in different
directions in an effort to estimate the size of the chamber in
which they were confined. Each man was to crawl in a straight line
in the direction assigned him and count the number of times that
his knees touched the ground before he came to the end of the
cavern.

By this means they discovered that the cave was long and narrow
and, if they were correct in the directions they had assumed, it
ran parallel to the lake shore. For twenty feet it extended in one
direction and for over fifty in the other.

It was finally decided that they should distribute the earth
equally over the floor of the chamber for a while and then carry it
to the further end, piling it against the further wall uniformly so
as not to attract unnecessary attention in the event that any of
the Horibs visited them.

Digging with their fingers was slow and laborious work, but they
kept steadily at it, taking turns about. The man at work would push
the dirt behind him and the others would gather it up and
distribute it, so that at no time was there a fresh pile of earth
upon the ground to attract attention should a Horib come. Horibs
did come, they brought food, but the men could hear the splash of
their bodies in the water as they dove into the lake to reach the
tunnel leading to the cave and being thus warned they grouped
themselves in front of the entrance to their tunnel effectually
hiding it from view. The Horibs who came into the chamber at no
time gave any suggestion of suspicion that all was not right. While
it was apparent that they could see in the dark it was also quite
evident that they could not discern things clearly and thus the
greatest fear that their plot might be discovered was at least
partially removed.

After considerable effort they had succeeded in excavating a
tunnel some three feet in diameter and about ten feet long when
Jason, who was excavating at the time, unearthed a large shell,
which greatly facilitated the process of excavation. From then on
their advance was more rapid, yet it seemed to them all that it was
an endless job; nor was there any telling at what moment the Horibs
would come to take them for the feast.

It was Jason's wish to get well within the forest before turning
their course upward toward the surface, but to be certain of this
he knew that they must first encounter roots of trees and pass
beyond them, which might necessitate a detour and delay, yet to
come up prematurely would be to nullify all that they had
accomplished so far and to put a definite end to all hope of
escape.

And while the five men dug beneath the ground in the dark hole
that was stretching slowly out beneath the dismal forest of the
Horibs, a great ship rode majestically high in air above the
northern slopes of the Mountains of the Thipdars.

"They never passed this way," said Zuppner. "Nothing short of a
mountain goat could cross this range."

"I quite agree with you, sir," said Hines. "We might as well
search in some other direction now."

"God!" exclaimed Zuppner, "if I only knew in what direction to
search."

Hines shook his head. "One direction is as good as another,
sir," he said.

"I suppose so," said Zuppner, and, obeying his light touch upon
the helm, the nose of the great dirigible swung to port. Following
an easterly course she paralleled the Mountains of the Thipdars and
sailed out over the Gyor Cors. A slight turn of the wheel would
have carried her to the south-east, across the dismal forest
through whose gloomy corridors Tarzan and Jana were being borne to
a horrible fate. But Captain Zuppner did not know and so the O-220
continued on toward the east, while the Lord of the Jungle and The
Red Flower of Zoram rode silently toward their doom.

From almost the moment that they had entered the forest Tarzan
had known that he might escape. It would have been the work of but
an instant to have leaped from the back of the Gorobor upon which
he was riding to one of the lower branches of the forest, some of
which barely grazed their heads as they passed beneath, and once in
the trees he knew that no Horib nor any Gorobor could catch him,
but he could not desert Jana; nor could he acquaint her with his
plans for they were never sufficiently close together for him to
whisper to her unheard by the Horibs. But even had he been able to
lay the whole thing before her, he doubted her ability to reach the
safety of the trees before the Horibs recaptured her.

If he could but get near enough to take hold of her, he was
confident that he could effect a safe escape for both of them and
so he rode on in silence, hoping against hope that the opportunity
he so desired would eventually develop.

They had reached the upper end of the lake and were skirting its
western shore and, from remarks dropped by the Horibs in their
conversations, which were far from numerous, the ape-man guessed
that they were almost at their destination, and still escape seemed
as remote as ever.

Chafing with impatience Tarzan was on the point of making a
sudden break for liberty, trusting that the unexpectedness of his
act would confuse the lizard-men for just the few seconds that
would be necessary for him to throw Jana to his shoulder and swing
to the lower terrace that beckoned invitingly from above.

The nerves and muscles of Tarzan of the Apes are trained to
absolute obedience to his will; they are never surprised into any
revelation of emotion, nor are they often permitted to reveal what
is passing in the mind of the ape-man when he is in the presence of
strangers or enemies, but now, for once, they were almost shocked
into revealing the astonishment that filled him as a vagrant breeze
carried to his nostrils a scent spoor that he had never thought to
know again.

The Horibs were moving almost directly up wind so that Tarzan
knew that the authors of the familiar odors that he had sensed were
somewhere ahead of them. He thought quickly now, but not without
weighing carefully the plan that had leaped to his mind the instant
that that familiar scent spoor had impinged upon his nostrils. His
major consideration was for the safety of the girl, but in order to
rescue her he must protect himself. He felt that it would be
impossible for them both to escape simultaneously, but there was
another way now—a way which seemed to offer excellent
possibilities for success. Behind him, upon the Gorobor, and so
close that their bodies touched, sat a huge Horib. In one hand he
carried a lance, but the other hand was free. Tarzan must move so
quickly that the fellow could not touch him with his free hand
before he was out of reach. To do this would require agility of an
almost superhuman nature, but there are few creatures who can
compare in this respect with the ape-man. Low above them swung the
branches of the dismal forest; Tarzan waited, watching for the
opportunity he sought. Presently he saw it—a sturdy branch
with ample head room above it—a doorway in the ceiling of
somber foliage. He leaned forward, his hands resting lightly upon
the neck of the Gorobor. They were almost beneath the branch he had
selected when he sprang lightly to his feet and almost in the same
movement sprang upward into the tree. So quickly had he
accomplished the feat that he was gone before the Horib that had
been guarding him realized it. When he did it was too
late—the prisoner had gone. With others who had seen the
escape, he raised a cry of warning to those ahead, but neither by
sight nor sound could they locate the fugitive, for Tarzan traveled
through the upper terrace and all the foliage beneath hid him from
the eyes of his enemies.

Jana, who had been riding a little in the rear of Tarzan, saw
his escape and her heart sank for in the presence of the Horibs The
Red Flower of Zoram had come as near to experiencing fear as she
ever had in her life. She had derived a certain sense of comfort
from the presence of Tarzan and now that he was gone she felt very
much alone. She did not blame him for escaping when he had the
opportunity, but she was sure in her own heart that Jason would not
thus have deserted her.

Following the scent spoor that was his only guide, Tarzan of the
Apes moved rapidly through the trees. At first he climbed high to
the upper terraces and here he found a new world—a world of
sunlight and luxuriant foliage, peopled by strange birds of
gorgeous plumage which darted swiftly hither and thither. There
were flying reptiles, too, and great gaudy moths. Snakes coiled
upon many a branch and because they were of varieties unknown to
him, he did not know whether they constituted a real menace or not.
It was at once a beautiful and a repulsive world, but the feature
of it which attracted him most was its silence, for its denizens
seemed to be voiceless. The presence of the snakes and the dense
foliage rendered it an unsatisfactory world for one who wished to
travel swiftly and so the ape-man dropped to a lower level, and
here he found the forest more open and the scent spoor clearer in
his nostrils.

Not once had he doubted the origin of that scent although it
seemed preposterously unbelievable that he should discover it here
in this gloomy wood in vast Pellucidar.

He was moving very rapidly for he wished, if possible, to reach
his destination ahead of the Horibs. He hoped that his escape might
delay the lizard-men and this was, in fact, the case, for they had
halted immediately while a number of them had climbed into the
trees searching for Tarzan. There was little in their almost
expressionless faces to denote their anger, but the sickly bluish
cast which overspread their scales denoted their mounting rage at
the ease with which this gilak prisoner had escaped them, and when,
finally, thwarted in their search, they resumed their interrupted
march, they were in a particularly ugly mood.

Far ahead of them now Tarzan of the Apes dropped to the lower
terraces. Strong in his nostrils was the scent spoor he had been
following, telling him in a language more dependable than words
that he had but little farther to go to find those he sought, and a
moment later he dropped down into one of the gloomy aisles of the
forest, dropping as from heaven into the astonished view of ten
stalwart warriors.

For an instant they stood looking at him in wide-eyed amazement
and then they ran forward and threw themselves upon their knees
about him, kissing his hands as they shed tears of happiness. "Oh,
Bwana, Bwana," they cried, "it is indeed you! Mulungu has been good
to his children; he has given their Big Bwana back to them
alive."

"And now I have work for you, my children," said Tarzan. "The
snake people are coming and with them is a girl whom they have
captured. I thank God that you are armed with rifles and I hope
that you have plenty of ammunition."

"Good," said Tarzan, "we shall need it now. How far are we from
the ship?"

"I do not know," said Muviro.

"You do not know?" repeated Tarzan.

"No, Bwana, we are lost. We have been lost for a long while,"
replied the chief of the Waziri.

"What were you doing away from the ship alone?" demanded
Tarzan.

"We were sent out with Gridley and Von Horst to search for you,
Bwana."

"Where are they?" asked Tarzan.

"A long time ago, I do not know how long, we became separated
from Gridley and never saw him again. At that time it was savage
beasts that separated us, but how Von Horst became separated from
us we do not know. We had found a cave and had gone into it to
sleep; when we awoke Von Horst was gone; we never saw him
again."

"They are coming," warned Tarzan.

"I hear them, Bwana," replied Muviro.

"Have you seen them—the snake people?" asked Tarzan.

"No, Bwana, we have seen no people for a long time, only
beasts—terrible beasts."

"You are going to see some terrible men now," Tarzan warned
them, "but do not be frightened by their appearance. Your bullets
will bring them down."

"When, Bwana, have you seen a Waziri frightened?" asked Muviro
proudly.

The ape-man smiled, "One of you let me take his rifle," he said,
"and then spread out through the forest. I do not know exactly
where they will pass, but the moment that any of you makes contact
with them commence shooting and shoot to kill, remembering,
however, that the girl rides in front of one of them. Be careful
that you do not harm her."

He had scarcely ceased speaking when the first of the Horibs
rode into view. Tarzan and the Waziri made no effort to seek
concealment and at sight of them the leading Horib gave voice to a
shrill cry of pleasure. Then a rifle spoke and the leading Horib
writhed convulsively and toppled sideways to the ground. The others
in the lead, depending upon the swiftness of their mounts, darted
quickly toward the Waziri and the tall, white giant who led them,
but swifter than the Gorobors were the bullets of the outer world.
As fast as Tarzan and the Waziri could fire the Horibs fell. Never
before had they known defeat. They blazed blue with rage, which
faded to a muddy gray when the bullets found their hearts and they
rolled dead upon the ground.

So swiftly did the Gorobors move and so rapidly did Tarzan and
the Waziri fire that the engagement was decided within a few
minutes of its inception, and now the remaining Horibs, discovering
that they could not hope to overcome and capture gilaks armed with
these strange weapons that hit them more swiftly than they could
hurl their lances, turned and scattered in an effort to pass around
the enemy and continue on their way.

As yet Tarzan had not caught a glimpse of Jana, though he knew
that she must be there somewhere in the rear of the remaining
Horibs, and then he saw her as she flashed by in the distance,
borne swiftly upon the back of a fleet Gorobor. What appeared to be
the only chance to save her now was to shoot down the swift beast
upon which she was being borne away. Tarzan swung his rifle to his
shoulder and at the same instant a riderless Gorobor struck him in
the back and sent him sprawling upon the ground. By the time he had
regained his feet, Jana and her captor were out of sight, hidden by
the boles of intervening trees.

Milling near the Waziri were a number of terrified, riderless
Gorobors. It was from this number that the fellow had broken who
had knocked Tarzan down. The beasts seemed to be lost without the
guidance of their masters, but when they saw one of their number
start in pursuit of the Horibs who had ridden away, the others
followed and in their mad rush these savage beasts constituted as
great a menace as the Horibs themselves.

Muviro and his warriors leaped nimbly behind the boles of large
trees to escape them, but to the mind of the ape-man they carried a
new hope, offering as they did the only means whereby he might
overtake the Horib who was bearing away The Red Flower of Zoram,
and then, to the horror and astonishment of the Waziri, Tarzan
leaped to the back of one of the great lizards as it scuttled
abreast of him. Locking his toes beneath its elbows, as he had seen
the Horibs do, he was carried swiftly in the mad rush of the
creature to overtake its fellows and its masters. No need to urge
it on, if he had known what means to employ to do so, for probably
still terrified and excited by the battle it darted with incredible
swiftness among the boles of the gray trees, outstripping its
fellows and leaving them behind.

Presently, just ahead of him, Tarzan saw the Horib who was
bearing Jana away and he saw, too, that he would soon overtake him,
but so swiftly was his own mount running that it seemed quite
likely that he would be carried past Jana without being able to
accomplish anything toward her rescue, and with this thought came
the realization that he must stop the Horib's mount.

There was just an instant in which to decide and act, but in
that instant he raised his rifle and fired. Perhaps it was a
wonderful bit of marksmanship, or perhaps it was just luck, but the
bullet struck the Gorobor in the spine and a moment later its hind
legs collapsed and it rolled over on its side, pitching Jana and
the Horib heavily to the ground. Simultaneously Tarzan's mount
swept by and the ape-man, risking a bad fall, slipped from its back
to go tumbling head over heels against the carcass of the Horib's
mount.

Leaping to his feet, he faced the lizard-man and as he did so
the ground gave way beneath him and he dropped suddenly into a
hole, almost to his armpits. As he was struggling to extricate
himself something seized him by the ankles and dragged him
downward—cold fingers that clung relentlessly to him dragging
him into a dark, subterranean hole.

THE O-220 cruised slowly above the Gyor Cors,
watchful eyes scanning the ground below, but the only living things
they saw were huge dinosaurs. Disturbed by the motors of the
dirigible, the great beasts trotted angrily about in circles and
occasionally an individual, sighting the ship above him, would
gallop after it, bellowing angrily, or again one might charge the
elliptical shadow that moved along the ground directly beneath the
O-220.

"Sweet tempered little fellows," remarked Lieutenant Hines, who
had been watching them from a mess-room port.

Unknown to the bewildered navigating officer, the ship was
taking a southeasterly course. Far away, on its port side, loomed a
range of mountains, hazily visible in the upcurving distance, and
now a river cut the plain—a river that came down from the
distant mountains—and this they followed, knowing that men
lost in a strange country are prone to follow the course of a
river, if they are so fortunate as to find one.

They had followed the river for some distance when Lieutenant
Dorf telephoned down from the observation cabin. "There is a
considerable body of water ahead, sir," he reported to Captain
Zuppner. "From its appearance I should say that we might be
approaching the shore of a large ocean."

All eyes were now strained ahead and presently a large body of
water became visible to all on board. The ship cruised slowly up
and down the coast for a short distance, and as it had been some
time since they had had fresh water or fresh meat, Zuppner decided
to land and make camp, selecting a spot just north of the river
they had been following, where it emptied into the sea. And as the
great ship settled gently to rest upon a rolling, grassy meadow,
Robert Jones made an entry in his little black diary.

"Arrived here at noon."

While the great ship settled down beside the shore of the silent
Pellucidarian sea, Jason Gridley and his companions, hundreds of
miles to the west, pushed their tunnel upward toward the surface of
the ground. Jason was in front, laboriously pushing the earth
backward a few handfuls at a time to those behind him. They were
working frantically now because the length of the tunnel already
was so great that it was with difficulty that they could return to
the cavern in time to forestall discovery when they heard Horibs
approaching.

As Jason scraped away at the earth above him, there broke
suddenly upon his ears what sounded like the muffled reverberation
of rifle shots. He could not believe that they were such, and yet
what else could they be? For so long had he been separated from his
fellows that it seemed impossible that any freak of circumstance
had brought them to this gloomy corner of Pellucidar, and though
hope ran high yet he cast this idea from his mind, substituting for
it a more natural conclusion—that the shots had come from the
arquebuses of Korsars, who had come up from the ship that Lajo had
told him was anchored somewhere below in the Rela Am. Doubtless the
captain had sent an expedition in search of the missing members of
his crew, but even the prospects of falling again into the hands of
the fierce Korsars appeared a heavenly one by comparison to the
fate with which they were confronted.

Now Jason redoubled his efforts, working frantically to drive
his narrow shaft upward toward the surface. The sound of the shots,
which had lasted but a few minutes, had ceased, to be followed by
the rapidly approaching thunder of many feet, as though heavy
animals were racing in his direction. He heard them passing almost
directly overhead and they seemed so close that he was positive he
must be near the surface of the ground. Another shot sounded almost
directly above him; he heard the thud of a heavy body and the earth
about him shook to the impact of its fall. Jason's excitement had
arisen to the highest pitch when suddenly the earth gave way above
him and something dropped into the shaft upon his head.

His mind long imbued with the fear that their plan for escape
would be discovered by the Horibs, Jason reacted instinctively to
the urge of self-preservation, the best chance for the
accomplishment of which seemed to be to drag the discoverer of
their secret out of sight as quickly as possible, and with this end
in view he backed quickly into the tunnel, dragging the interloper
with him, and to a certain point this was not difficult, but it so
happened that Tarzan had clung to his rifle. The rifle chanced to
strike the ground in a horizontal position, as the ape-man was
dragged into the tunnel, and the muzzle and butt lodged upon
opposite sides of the opening, thus forming a rigid bar across the
mouth of the aperture, to which the ape-man clung as Jason dragged
frantically upon his ankles, and then slowly the steel thews of the
Jungle Lord tensed and as he drew himself upward, he drew Jason
Gridley with him. Strain and struggle as he would, the American
could not overcome the steady pull of those giant thews. Slowly,
irresistibly, he was dragged into the shaft and upward toward the
surface of the ground.

By this time, of course, he knew that the creature to which he
clung was no Horib, for his fingers were closed upon the smooth
skin of a human being, and not upon the scaly hide of a lizard-man,
but yet he felt that he must not let the fellow escape.

The Horib, who had been expecting Tarzan's attack, had seen him
disappear mysteriously into the ground, nor did he wait to
investigate the miracle, but seizing Jana by the wrist he hurried
after his fellows, dragging the struggling girl with him.

The two were just disappearing among the boles of the trees down
a gloomy aisle of the somber forest when Tarzan, emerging from the
shaft, caught a single fleeting glimpse of them. It was almost the
growl of an enraged beast that escaped his lips as he realized that
this last calamity might have definitely precluded the possibility
of effecting the girl's rescue. Chafing at the restraint of the
clutching fingers clinging desperately to his ankles, the ape-man
kicked violently in an effort to dislodge them and with such good
effect that he sent Jason tumbling back into his tunnel, while he
leaped to the solid ground and freedom to spring into pursuit of
the Horib and The Red Flower of Zoram.

Calling back to his companions to hurry after him, Jason
clambered swiftly to the surface of the ground just in time to see
a half-naked bronzed giant before he disappeared from view behind
the bole of a large tree, but that single glimpse awakened familiar
memories and his heart leaped within him at the suggestion it
implied. But how could it be? Had not Thoar seen the Lord of the
Jungle carried to his doom? Whether the man was Tarzan or not was
of less import than the reason for his haste. Was he escaping or
pursuing? But in either event something seemed to tell Jason
Gridley that he should not lose sight of him; at least he was not a
Horib, and if not a Horib, then he must be an enemy of the
lizard-men. So rapidly had events transpired that Jason was
confused in his own mind as to the proper course to pursue; yet
something seemed to urge him not to lose sight of the stranger and
acting upon this impulse, he followed at a brisk run.

Through the dark wood ran Tarzan of the Apes, guided only by the
delicate and subtle aroma that was the scent spoor of The Red
Flower of Zoram and which would have been perceptible to no other
human nostrils than those of the Lord of the Jungle. Strong in his
nostrils also, was the sickening scent of the Horibs and fearful
lest he come upon them unexpectedly in numbers, he swung lightly
into the trees and, with undiminished speed, raced in the direction
of his quarry; nor was it long before he saw them beneath
him—a single Horib dragging the still struggling Jana.

There was no hesitation, there was no diminution in his speed as
he launched himself like a living projectile straight for the ugly
back of the Horib. With such force he struck the creature, that it
was half-stunned as he bore it to the ground. A sinewy arm
encircled its neck as Tarzan arose dragging the creature up with
him. Turning quickly and bending forward, Tarzan swung the body
over his head and hurled it violently to the ground, still
retaining his hold about its neck. Again and again he whipped the
mighty body over his head and dashed it to the gray earth, while
the girl, wide-eyed with astonishment at this exhibition of
Herculean strength, looked on.

At last, satisfied that the creature was dead or stunned, Tarzan
released it. Quickly he appropriated its stone knife and picked up
its fallen lance, then he turned to Jana.

"Come," he said, "there is but one safe place for us," and
lifting her to his shoulder he leaped to the low hanging branch of
a nearby tree. "Here, at least," he said, "you will be safe from
Horibs, for I doubt if any Gorobor can follow us here."

"I always thought that there were no warriors like the warriors
of Zoram," said Jana, "but that was before I had known you and
Jason."

Nor could she, as Tarzan well knew, have voiced a more sincere
appreciation of what he had done for her, for to the primitive
woman there are no men like her own men. "I wish," she continued
sadly after a pause, "that Jason had lived. He was a great man and
a mighty warrior, but above all he was a kind man. The men of Zoram
are never cruel to their women, but they are not always thoughtful
and considerate. Jason seemed always to think of my comfort before
everything except my safety."

"You were very fond of him, were you not?" asked Tarzan.

The Red Flower of Zoram did not answer: There were tears in her
eyes and in her throat so that she could only nod her head.

Once in the trees, Tarzan had lowered Jana to her feet,
presently discovering that she could travel without assistance, as
might have been expected of one who could leap lightly from crag to
crag upon the dizzy slopes of Thipdars heights. They moved without
haste back to the point where they had last seen Muviro and his
Waziri warriors, but as the way took them down wind Tarzan could
not hope to pick up the scent spoor of his henchmen and so his ears
were constantly upon the alert for any slightest sound that might
reveal their whereabouts. Presently they were rewarded by the sound
of footsteps hurrying through the forest toward them.

The ape-man drew the girl behind the bole of a large tree and
waited, silent, motionless, for all footfalls are not the footfalls
of friends.

They had waited for but a moment when there came into view upon
the ground below them an almost naked man clothed in a bit of
filthy goatskin, which was almost undistinguishable as such beneath
a coating of mud, while the original color of his skin was hidden
beneath a similar covering. A great mass of tousled black hair
surmounted his head. He was quite the filthiest appearing creature
that Tarzan had ever looked upon, but he was evidently no Horib and
he was unarmed. What he was doing there alone in the grim forest,
the ape-man could not imagine, so he dropped to the ground
immediately in front of the surprised wayfarer.

At sight of the ape-man, the other stopped, his eyes wide with
astonishment and incredulity. "Tarzan!" he exclaimed. "My God, it
is really you. You are not dead. Thank God you are not dead."

It was an instant before the ape-man could recognize the
speaker, but not so the girl hiding in the tree above. The instant
that she had heard his voice she had known him.

A slow smile overspread the features of the Lord of the
jungle.

"Gridley!" he exclaimed. "Jason Gridley! Jana told me that you
were dead."

"Jana?" exclaimed Jason. "You know her? You have seen her? Where
is she?"

"She is here with me," replied Tarzan.

The Red Flower of Zoram had slipped to the ground upon the
opposite side of the tree and now she stepped from behind its
trunk.

"Jana!" cried Jason, coming eagerly toward her.

The girl drew herself to her full height and turned a shoulder
toward him. "Jalok!" she cried contemptuously. "Must I tell you
again to keep away from The Red Flower of Zoram?"

Jason halted in his tracks, his arms dropped limply to his side,
his attitude one of utter dejection.

Tarzan looked silently on, his brows momentarily revealing his
perplexity, but it was not his way to interfere in affairs that
were wholly the concern of others. "Come," he said, "we must find
the Waziri."

Suddenly loud voices just ahead apprised them of the presence of
other men and in the babel of excited voices Tarzan recognized the
tones of his Waziri. Hurrying forward, the three came upon a scene
that was momentarily ludicrous, but which might soon have developed
into tragedy had they not arrived in time.

Ten Waziri warriors armed with rifles had surrounded Thoar and
the three Korsars and each party was jabbering volubly in a
language unknown to the other.

The Pellucidarians, never before having seen human beings of the
rich, deep, black color of the Waziri and assuming that all
strangers were enemies, apprehended only the worst and were about
to make a concerted effort to escape their captors, while Muviro,
believing that these men might have some sinister connection with
the disappearance of his master, was determined to hold and
question them; nor would he have hesitated to kill them had they
resisted him. It was, therefore, a relief to both parties when
Tarzan, Jason and Jana appeared, and the Waziri saw their Big Bwana
greet one of their captives with every indication of
friendship.

Thoar was even more surprised to find Tarzan alive than Jason
had been, and when he saw Jana the natural reserve which ordinarily
marked his bearing was dissipated by the joy and relief which he
felt in finding her safe and well; nor any less surprised and happy
was Jana as she rushed forward and threw herself into her brother's
arms.

His breast filled with emotion such as he had never experienced
before, Jason Gridley stood apart, a silent witness of this loving
reunion, and then, probably for the first time, there came to him
an acute realization of the fact that the sentiment which he
entertained for this little barbarian was nothing less than
love.

It galled him even to admit it to himself and he felt that he
was contemptible to harbor jealousy of Thoar, not only because
Thoar was his friend, but because he was only a primitive savage,
while he, Jason Gridley, was the product of ages of culture and
civilization.

Thoar, Lajo and the other two Korsars were naturally delighted
when they found that the strange warriors whom they had looked upon
as enemies were suddenly transformed into friends and allies, and
when they heard the story of the battle with the Horibs they knew
that the greatest danger which threatened them was now greatly
minimized because of the presence of these warriors armed with
death-dealing weapons that made the ancient arquebuses of the
Korsars appear as inadequate as sling shots, and that escape from
this horrible country was as good as accomplished.

Resting after their recent exertion, each party briefly narrated
the recent adventures that had befallen them and attempts were made
to formulate plans for the future, but here difficulties arose.
Thoar wished to return to Zoram with Jana. Tarzan, Jason and the
Waziri desired only to find the other members of their expedition;
while Lajo and his two fellows were principally concerned with
getting back to their ship.

Tarzan and Jason, realizing that it might not be expedient to
acquaint the Korsars with the real purpose of their presence in
Pellucidar and finding that the men were familiar with the story of
Tanar, gave them to believe that they were merely searching for
Sari in order to pay a friendly visit to Tanar and his people.

"Sari is a long way," said Lajo. "He who would go to Sari from
here must sleep over a hundred times upon the journey, which would
take him across the Korsar Az and then through strange countries
filled with enemies, even as far as The Land of Awful Shadow. Maybe
one would never reach it."

"Is there no way overland?" asked Tarzan.

"Yes," replied Lajo, "and if we were at Korsar, I might direct
you, but that, too, would be a terrible journey, for no man knows
what savage tribes and beasts beset the long marches that must lie
between Korsar and Sari."

"And if we went to Korsar," said Jason, "we could not hope to be
received as friends. Is this not true, Lajo?"

The Korsar nodded. "No," he said. "You would not be received as
friends."

"Nevertheless," said Tarzan to Jason, "I believe that if we are
ever to find the O-220 again our best chance is to look for it in
the vicinity of Korsar."

Jason nodded in acquiescence. "But that will not accord with
Thoar's plans," he said, "for, if I understand it correctly, we are
much nearer to Zoram now than we are to Korsar and if we decide to
go to Korsar, our route will lead directly away from Zoram. But,
unless we accompany them with the Waziri, I doubt if Thoar and Jana
could live to reach Zoram if they returned by the route that he and
I have followed since we left the Mountains of the Thipdars."

Tarzan turned to Thoar. "If you will come with us, we can return
you very quickly to Zoram if we find our ship. If we do not find it
within a reasonable time, we will accompany you back to Zoram. In
either event you would have a very much better chance of reaching
your own country than you would if you and Jana set out alone from
here."

"We will accompany you, then," said Thoar, and then his brow
clouded as some thought seemed suddenly to seize upon his mind. He
looked for a moment at Jason, and then he turned to Jana. "I had
almost forgotten," he said. "Before we can go with these people as
friends, I must know if this man offered you any injury or harm
while you were with him. If he did, I must kill him."

Jana did not look at Jason as she replied. "You need not kill
him," she said. "Had that been necessary The Red Flower of Zoram
would have done it herself."

"Very well," said Thoar, "I am glad because he is my friend. Now
we may all go together."

"Our boat is probably in the river where the Horibs left it
after they captured us," said Lajo. "If it is we can soon drop down
to our ship, which is anchored in the lower waters of the Rela
Am."

"And be taken prisoners by your people," said Jason. "No, Lajo,
the tables are turned now and if you go with us, it is you who will
be the prisoners."

The Korsar shrugged. "I do not care," he said. "We will
doubtless get a hundred lashes apiece when the captain finds that
we have been unsuccessful, that we have brought back nothing and
that he has lost an officer and many members of his crew."

It was finally decided that they would return to the Rela Am and
look for the longboat of the Korsars. If they found it they would
float down in search of the ship, when they would at least make an
effort to persuade the captain to receive them as friends and
transport them to the vicinity of Korsar.

On the march back to the Rela Am they were not molested by the
Horibs, who had evidently discovered that they had met their
masters in the Waziri. During the march Jason made it a point to
keep as far away from Jana as possible. The very sight of her
reminded him of his hopeless and humiliating infatuation, and to be
very near her constituted a form of refined agony which he could
not endure. Her contempt, which she made no effort to conceal,
galled him bitterly, though it was no greater than his own
self-contempt when he realized that in spite of every reason that
he had to dislike her, he still loved her—loved her more than
he had thought it was possible for him to love any woman.

The American was glad when a glimpse of the broad waters of the
Rela Am ahead of them marked the end of this stage of their
journey, which his own unhappy thoughts, combined with the
depressing influence of the gloomy forest, had transformed into one
of the saddest periods of his life.

To the relief of all, the boat was found still moored where the
Horibs had left it, nor did it take them long to embark and push
out upon the waters of the River of Darkness.

The river widened as they floated down toward the sea until it
became possible to step a mast and set sail, after which their
progress was still more rapid. Though the way was often beset by
dangers in the form of angry and voracious saurians, the rifles of
the Waziri proved adequate protection when other means of defense
had failed.

The river became very wide so that but for the current they
might have considered it an arm of the sea and at Lajo's direction
they kept well in toward the left bank, near which, he said, the
ship was anchored. Dimly visible in the distance was the opposite
shore, but only so because the surface of Pellucidar curved upward.
At the same distance upon the outer crust, it would have been
hidden by the curvature of the earth.

As they neared the sea it became evident that Lajo and the two
other Korsars were much concerned because they had not sighted
their ship.

"We have passed the anchorage," said Lajo at last. "That wooded
hill, which we just passed, was directly opposite the spot where
the ship lay. I cannot be mistaken because I noted it particularly
and impressed it upon my memory as a landmark against the time when
we should return from our expedition up the river."

"He has sailed away and left us," growled one of the Korsars,
applying a vile epithet to the captain of the departed ship.

Continuing on down to the ocean they sighted a large island
directly off the mouth of the river, which Lajo told them afforded
good hunting with plenty of fresh water and as they were in need of
meat they landed there and made camp. It was an ideal spot inasmuch
as that part of the island at which they had touched seemed to be
peculiarly free from the more dangerous forms of carnivorous
mammals and reptiles, nor did they see any sign of the presence of
man. Game, therefore, was abundant.

Discussing their plans for the future, it was finally decided
that they would push on toward Korsar in the longboat, for Lajo
assured them that it lay upon the coast of the same landmass that
loomed plainly from their island refuge. "What lies in that
direction," he said, pointing south, "I do not know, but there lies
Korsar, upon this same coast," and he pointed in a direction a
little east of north. "Otherwise I am not familiar with this sea,
or with this part of Pellucidar, since never before has an
expedition come as far as the Rela Am."

In preparation for the long cruise to Korsar, great quantities
of meat were cut into strips and dried in the sun, or smoked over
slow fires, after which it was packed away in bladders that had
been carefully cleaned and dried. These were stowed in the boat
together with other bladders filled with fresh water, for, although
it was their intention to hug the coast on the way to Korsar, it
might not always be expedient to land for water or food, and there
was always the possibility that, with a storm arising, they might
be blown out to sea.

At length, all preparations having been made, the strangely
assorted company embarked upon their hazardous journey toward
distant Korsar.

Jana had worked with the others preparing the provisions and the
containers and though she had upon several occasions worked side by
side with Jason, she had never relaxed toward him, nor appeared to
admit that she was cognizant of his presence.

"Can't we be friends, Jana?" he asked once. "I think we would
both be very much happier if we were."

"I am as happy as I can be," she replied lightly, "until Thoar
takes me back to Zoram."

As favorable winds carried the longboat and its
company up the sunlit sea, the O-220, following the same route,
made occasional wide circles inland upon what Zuppner now
considered an almost hopeless quest for the missing members of the
expedition, and not only was he hopeless upon this score, but he
also shared the unvoiced hopelessness of the balance of the company
with regard to the likelihood of their ever being able to find the
polar opening and return again to the outer world. With them, he
knew that even their tremendous reserve of fuel and oil would not
last indefinitely and if they were unable to find the polar
opening, while they still had sufficient in reserve to carry them
back to civilization, they must resign themselves to remaining in
Pellucidar for the rest of their lives.

Lieutenant Hines finally broached this subject and the two
officers, after summoning Lieutenant Dorf to their conference,
decided that before their fuel was entirely exhausted they would
try to locate some district where they might be reasonably free
from attacks by savage tribesmen, or the even more dangerous menace
of the mighty carnivores of Pellucidar.

While the remaining officers of the O-220 pondered the serious
problems that confronted them, the great ship moved serenely
through the warm Pellucidarian sunlight and the members of the crew
went quietly and efficiently about their various duties.

Robert Jones of Alabama, however, was distressed. He seemed
never to be able to accustom himself to the changed conditions of
Pellucidar. He often mumbled to himself, shaking his head
vehemently, and frequently he wound a battered alarm clock or took
it down from the hook upon which it hung and held it to his
ear.

Below the ship there unrolled a panorama of lovely sea coast
indented by many beautiful bays and inlets. There were rolling
hills and plains and forests and winding rivers blue as turquoise.
It was a scene to inspire the loftiest sentiments in the lowliest
heart nor was it without its effect upon the members of the ship's
company, which included many adventurous spirits, who would
experience no regret should it develop that they must remain
forever in this, to them, enchanted land. But there were others who
had left loved ones at home and these were already beginning to
discuss the possibilities and the probabilities of the future. With
few exceptions, they were keen and intelligent men and fully
cognizant of the possible plight of the O-220 as was its commander,
but they had been chosen carefully, and there was not one who
wavered even momentarily in loyalty to Zuppner, for they well knew
that whatever fate was to be theirs, he would share it with them
and, too, they had confidence that if any man could extricate them
from their predicament, it was he. And so the great ship rode its
majestic way between the sun and earth and each part, whether
mechanical or human, functioned perfectly.

The Captain and his Lieutenant discussed the future as Robert
Jones laboriously ascended the climbing shaft to the walkingway
upon the ship's back, a hundred and fifty feet above his galley. He
did not come entirely out of the climbing shaft onto the
walkingway, but merely looked about the blue heaven and when his
gaze had completed the circle, he hesitated a moment and then
looked straight up, where, directly overhead, hung the eternal
noonday sun of Pellucidar.

Robert Jones blinked his eyes and retreated into the shaft,
closing the hatch after him. Muttering to himself, he descended
carefully to the galley, crossed it, took the clock off its hook
and, walking to an open port, threw it overboard.

To the occupants of the longboat dancing over the blue waves,
without means of determining either time or distance, the constant
expectation of nearing their journey's end lessened the monotony as
did the oft recurring attacks of the frightful denizens of this
Mesozoic sea. To the highly civilized American the utter
timelessness of Pellucidarian existence brought a more marked
nervous reaction than to the others. To a lesser degree Tarzan felt
it, while the Waziri were only slightly conscious of the anomalous
conditions. Upon the Pellucidarians, accustomed to no other state,
it had no effect whatever. It was apparent when Tarzan and Jason
discussed the matter with them that they had practically no
conception of the meaning of time.

But time did elapse, leagues of ocean passed beneath them and
conditions changed.

As they moved along the coast their course changed, though
without instruments or heavenly bodies to guide them they were not
aware of it. For a while they had moved northeast and then, for a
long distance, to the east, where the coast curved gradually until
they were running due north.

Instinct told the Korsars that they had come about
three-quarters of the distance from the island where they had
outfitted to their destination. A land breeze was blowing stiffly
and they were tacking briskly up the coast at a good clip.

Lajo was standing erect in the bow apparently sniffing the air,
as might a hunting dog searching out a scent spoor. Presently he
turned to Tarzan.

"We had better put in to the coast," he said. "We are in for a
stiff blow." But it was too late, the wind and the sea mounting to
such proportions, that finally they had to abandon the attempt and
turn and flee before the storm. There was no rain nor lightning,
for there were no clouds—just a terrific wind that rose to
hurricane violence and stupendous seas that threatened momentarily
to engulf them.

The Waziri were frankly terrified, for the sea was not their
element. The mountain girl and her brother seemed awed, but if they
felt fear they gave no outward indication of it. Tarzan and Jason
were convinced that the boat could not live and the latter made his
way to where Jana sat huddled upon a thwart. The howling of the
wind made speech almost impossible, but he bent low placing his
lips close to her ear.

"Jana," he said, "it is impossible for this small boat to ride
out such a storm. We are going to die, but before we die, whether
you hate me or not, I am going to tell you that I love you," and
then before she could reply, before she could humiliate him
further, he turned away and moved forward to where he had been
before.

He knew that he had done wrong; he knew that he had no right to
tell Thoar's sweetheart that he loved her; it had been an act of
disloyalty and yet a force greater than loyalty, greater than
pride, had compelled him to speak those words—he could not
die with them unspoken. Perhaps it had been a little easier because
he could not help but have noticed the seemingly platonic
relationship which existed between Thoar and Jana and, being unable
to picture Jana as platonic in love, he had assumed that Thoar did
not appreciate her. He was always kind to her and always pleasant,
but he had never been quite as thoughtful of her as Jason thought
that he should have been. He felt that perhaps it was one of the
strange inflections of Pellucidarian character, but it was
difficult to know either Jana or Thoar and also to believe, for
they were evidently quite as normal human beings as was he, and
though they had much of the natural primitive reserve and dignity
that civilized man now merely affects, it seemed unlikely that
either one of them could have been for so long a time in close
association without inadvertently, at least, having given some
indication of their love. "Why," mused Jason, "they might be
brother and sister from the way they act."

By some miracle of fate the boat lived through the storm, but
when the wind diminished and the seas went down there were only
tumbling waters to be seen on every hand, nor any sign of land.

"Now that we have lost the coast, Lajo, how are we going to set
our course for Korsar?" asked Tarzan.

"It will not be easy," replied Lajo. "The only guide that we
have is the wind. We are well out on the Korsar Az and I know from
which direction the wind usually blows. By keeping always on the
same tack we shall eventually reach land and probably not far from
Korsar."

"What is that?" asked Jana, pointing, and all eyes turned in the
direction that she indicated.

"It is a sail," said Lajo presently. "We are saved."

"But suppose the ship is manned by unfriendly people?" asked
Jason.

"It is not," said Lajo. "It is manned by Korsars, for no other
ships sail the Korsar Az."

"There is another," exclaimed Jana. "There are many of
them."

"Come about and run for it," said Tarzan. "Perhaps they have not
seen us yet."

"Why should we try to escape?" asked Lajo.

"Because we have not enough men to fight them," replied Tarzan.
"They may not be your enemies, but they will be ours."

Lajo did as he was bid, nor had he any alternative since the
Korsars aboard were only three unarmed men, while there were ten
Waziri with rifles.

All eyes watched the sails in the distance and it soon became
apparent that they were coming closer, for the longboat, with its
small sail, was far from fast. Little by little the distance
between them and the ships decreased until it was evident that they
were being pursued by a considerable fleet.

"Those are no Korsars," said Lajo. "I have never seen ships like
those before."

The longboat wallowed through the sea making the best headway
that it could, but the pursuing ships, stringing out as far as the
eye could reach until their numbers presented the appearance of a
vast armada, continued to close up rapidly upon it.

The leading ship was now closing up so swiftly upon them that
the occupants of the longboat had an excellent view of it. It was
short and broad of beam with rather a high bow. It had two sails
and in addition was propelled by oars, which protruded through
ports along each side, there being some fifty oars all told. Above
the line of oars, over the sides of the ship, were hung the shields
of the warriors.

"Lord!" exclaimed Jason to Tarzan. "Pellucidar not only boasts
Spanish pirates, but Vikings as well, for if those are not Viking
ships they certainly are an adaptation of them."

"Slightly modernized, however," remarked the Lord of the Jungle.
"There is a gun mounted on a small deck built in the bow."

"So there is," exclaimed Jason, "and I think we had better come
about. There is a fellow up there turning it on us now."

Presently another man appeared upon the elevated bow deck of the
enemy. "Heave to," he cried, "or I'll blow you out of the
water."

"Who are you?" demanded Jason.

"I am Ja of Anoroc," replied the man, "and this is the fleet of
David I, Emperor of Pellucidar."

"Come about," said Tarzan to Lajo.

"Someone in this boat must have been born on Sunday," exclaimed
Jason. "I never knew there was so much good luck in the world."

"Who are you?" demanded Ja as the longboat came slowly
about.

"We are friends," replied Tarzan.

"The Emperor of Pellucidar can have no friends upon the Korsar
Az," replied Ja.

"If Abner Perry is with you, we can prove that you are wrong,"
replied Jason.

"Abner Perry is not with us," said Ja, "but what do you know of
him?"

By this time the two boats were alongside and the bronzed Mezop
warriors of Ja's crew were gazing down curiously upon the occupants
of the boat.

"This is Jason Gridley," said Tarzan to Ja, indicating the
American. "Perhaps you have heard Abner Perry speak of him. He
organized an expedition in the outer world to come here to rescue
David Innes from the dungeons of the Korsars."

The three Korsars in the longboat made Ja suspicious, but when a
full explanation had been made and especially when they had
examined the rifles of the Waziri, he became convinced of the truth
of their statements and welcomed them warmly aboard his ship, about
which were now gathered a considerable number of the armada. When
word was passed among them that two of the strangers were friends
from the outer world who had come to assist in the rescue of David
Innes, a number of the captains of other ships came aboard Ja's
flagship to greet Tarzan and Jason. Among these captains were Daoor
the Strong One, brother of Dian the Beautiful, Empress of
Pellucidar; Kolk, son of Goork, who is chief of the Thurians; and
Tanar, son of Ghak, the Hairy One, King of Sari.

From these Tarzan and Jason learned that this fleet was on its
way to effect the rescue of David. It had been building for a great
while, so long that they had forgotten how many times they had
eaten and slept since the first keel was laid, and then they had
had to find a way into the Korsar Az from the Lural Az, where the
ships were built upon the island of Anoroc.

"Far down the Sojar Az beyond the Land of Awful Shadow, we found
a passage that led to the Korsar Az. The Thurians had heard of it
and while the fleet was building they sent warriors out to see if
it was true and they found the passage and soon we shall be before
the city of Korsar."

"How did you expect to rescue David with only a dozen men?"
asked Tanar.

"We are not all here," said Tarzan. "We became separated from
our companions and have been unable to find them. However, there
were not very many men in our expedition. We depended upon other
means than manpower to effect the rescue of your Emperor."

At this moment a great cry arose from one of the ships. The
excitement rose and spread. The warriors were all looking into the
air and pointing. Already some of them were elevating the muzzles
of their cannons and all were preparing their rifles, and as Tarzan
and Jason looked up they saw the O-220 far above them.

The dirigible had evidently discovered the fleet and was
descending toward it in a wide spiral.

"Now I know someone was born on Sunday," said Jason. "That is
our ship. Those are our friends," he added, turning to Ja.

All that transpired on board the flagship passed quickly from
ship to ship until every member of the armada knew that the great
thing hovering above them was no gigantic flying reptile, but a
ship of the air in which were friends of Abner Perry and their
beloved Emperor, David I.

Slowly the great ship settled toward the surface of the sea and
as it did so Jason Gridley borrowed a spear from one of the
warriors and tied Lajo's head handkerchief to its tip. With this
improvised flag he signaled, "O-220 ahoy! This is the war fleet of
David I, Emperor of Pellucidar, commanded by Ja of Anoroc; Lord
Greystoke, ten Waziri and Jason Gridley aboard."

A moment later a gun boomed from the rear turret of the O-220,
marking the beginning of the first international salute of
twenty-one guns that had ever reverberated beneath the eternal sun
of Pellucidar, and when the significance of it was explained to Ja
he returned the salute with the bow gun of his flagship.

The dirigible dropped lower until it was within speaking
distance of the flagship.

"Are you all well aboard?" asked Tarzan.

"Yes," came back the reassuring reply in Zuppner's booming
tone.

"Is Von Horst with you?" asked Jason.

"No," replied Zuppner.

"Then he alone is missing," said Jason sadly.

"Can you drop a sling and take us aboard?" asked Tarzan.

Zuppner maneuvered the dirigible to within fifty feet of the
deck of Ja's flagship, a sling was lowered and one after another
the members of the party were taken on board the O-220, the Waziri
first and then Jana and Thoar, followed by Jason and Tarzan, the
three Korsars being left prisoners with Ja with the understanding
that they were to be treated humanely.

Before Tarzan left the deck of the flagship he told Ja that if
he would proceed toward Korsar, the dirigible would keep in touch
with him and in the meantime they would be perfecting plans for the
rescue of David Innes.

As Thoar and Jana were hoisted aboard the O-220, they were
filled with a boundless amazement. To them such a creation as the
giant dirigible was inconceivable. As Jana expressed it afterward:
"I knew that I was dreaming, but yet at the same time I knew that I
could not dream about such a thing as this because no such thing
existed."

Jason introduced Jana and Thoar to Zuppner and Hines, but
Lieutenant Dorf did not come to the cabin until after Tarzan had
boarded the ship, and it was the latter who introduced them to
Dorf.

He presented Lieutenant Dorf to Jana and then, indicating Thoar,
"This is Thoar, the brother of The Red Flower of Zoram."

As those words broke upon the ears of Jason Gridley he reacted
almost as to the shock of a physical blow. He was glad that no one
chanced to be looking at him at the time and instantly he regained
his composure, but it left him with a distinct feeling of injury.
They had all known it and none of them had told him. He was almost
angry at them until it occurred to him that they had all probably
assumed that he had known it too, and yet try as he would he could
not quite forgive Jana. But, really, what difference did it make,
for, whether sister or mate of Thoar or another, he knew that The
Red Flower of Zoram was not for him. She had made that definitely
clear in her attitude toward him, which had convinced him even more
definitely than had her bitter words.

The reunited officers of the expedition had much to discuss and
many reminiscences to narrate as the O-220 followed above the
slowly moving fleet. It was a happy reunion, clouded only by the
absence of Von Horst.

As the dirigible moved slowly above the waters of the Korsar Az,
Zuppner dropped occasionally to within speaking distance of Ja of
Anoroc, and when the distant coast of Korsar was sighted a sling
was lowered and Ja was taken aboard the O-220, where plans for the
rescue of David were discussed, and when they were perfected Ja was
returned to his ship, and Lajo and the two other Korsars were taken
aboard the dirigible.

The three prisoners were filled with awe and consternation as
Jason and Tarzan personally conducted them throughout the giant
craft. They were shown the armament, which was carefully explained
to them, special stress being laid upon the destructive power of
the bombs which the O-220 carried.

"One of these," said Jason to Lajo, "would blow The Cid's palace
a thousand feet into the air and, as you see, we have many of them.
We could destroy all of Korsar and all the Korsar ships."

While Ja's fleet was still a considerable distance off the
coast, the O-220 raced ahead at full speed toward Korsar, for the
plan which they had evolved was such that, if successful, David's
release would be effected without the shedding of blood—a
plan which was especially desirable since if it was necessary to
attack Korsar either from the sea or the air, the Emperor's life
would be placed in jeopardy from the bombs and cannons of his
friends, as well as from a possible spirit of vengeance which might
animate The Cid.

As the dirigible glided almost silently over the city of Korsar,
the streets and courtyards filled with people staring upward in
awestruck wonder.

Three thousand feet above the city the ship stopped and Tarzan
sent for the three Korsar prisoners.

"As you know," he said to them, "we are in a position to destroy
Korsar. You have seen the great fleet coming to the rescue of the
Emperor of Pellucidar. You know that every warrior manning those
ships is armed with a weapon far more effective than your best;
even with their knives and spears and their bows and arrows they
might take Korsar without their rifles, but they have the rifles
and they have better ammunition than yours and in each ship of the
fleet cannons are mounted. Alone the fleet could reduce Korsar, but
in addition to the fleet there is this airship. Your shots could
never reach it as it sailed back and forth above Korsar, dropping
bombs upon the city. Do you think, Lajo, that we can take
Korsar?"

"I know it," replied the Korsar.

"Very well," said Tarzan. "I am going to send you with a message
to The Cid. Will you tell him the truth?"

"I will," replied Lajo.

"The message is simple," continued Tarzan. "You may tell him
that we have come to effect the release of the Emperor of
Pellucidar. You may explain to him the means that we have to
enforce our demands, and then you may say to him that if he will
place the Emperor upon a ship and take him out to our fleet and
deliver him unharmed to Ja of Anoroc, we will return to Sari
without firing a shot. Do you understand?"

"I do," said Lajo.

"Very well, then," said Tarzan. He turned to Dorf, "Lieutenant,
will you take him now?" he asked.

Dorf approached with a bundle in his hand. "Slip into this," he
said.

"What is it?" asked Lajo.

"It is a parachute," said Dorf.

"What is that?" demanded Lajo.

"Here," said Dorf, "put your arms through here." A moment later
he had the parachute adjusted upon the Korsar.

"Now," said Jason, "a great distinction is going to be conferred
upon you—you are going to make the first parachute jump that
has ever been witnessed in Pellucidar."

"I don't understand what you mean," said Lajo.

"You will presently," said Jason. "You are going to take Lord
Greystoke's message to The Cid."

"But you will have to bring the ship down to the ground before I
can," objected Lajo.

"On the contrary we are going to stay right where we are," said
Jason. "You are going to jump overboard."

"What?" exclaimed Lajo. "You are going to kill me?"

"No," said Jason with a laugh. "Listen carefully to what I tell
you and you will land safely. You have seen some wonderful things
on board this ship so you must have some conception of what we of
the outer world can do. Now you are going to have a demonstration
of another very wonderful invention and you may take my word for it
that no harm will befall you if you do precisely as I tell you to.
Here is an iron ring," and he touched the ring opposite Lajo's left
breast; "take hold of it with your right hand. After you jump from
the ship, pull it; give it a good jerk and you will float down to
the ground as lightly as a feather."

"I will be killed," objected Lajo.

"If you are a coward," said Jason, "perhaps one of these other
men is braver than you. I tell you that you will not be hurt."

"I am not afraid," said Lajo. "I will jump."

"Tell The Cid," said Tarzan, "that if we do not presently see a
ship sail out alone to meet the fleet, we shall start dropping
bombs upon the city." Dorf led Lajo to a door in the cabin and
flung it open. The man hesitated.

"Do not forget to jerk the ring," said Dorf, and at the same
time he gave Lajo a violent push that sent him headlong through the
doorway and a moment later the watchers in the cabin saw the white
folds of the parachute streaming in the air. They saw it open and
they knew that the message of Tarzan would be delivered to The
Cid.

What went on in the city below we may not know, but presently a
great crowd was seen to move from the palace down toward the river,
where the ships were anchored, and a little later one of the ships
weighed anchor and as it drifted slowly with the current its sails
were set and presently it was moving directly out to sea toward the
fleet from Sari.

The O-220 followed above it and Ja's flagship moved forward to
meet it, and thus David Innes, Emperor of Pellucidar, was returned
to his people.

As the Korsar ship turned back to port the dirigible dropped low
above the flagship of the Sarian fleet and greetings were exchanged
between David and his rescuers—men from another world whom he
had never seen.

The Emperor was half-starved and very thin and weak from his
long period of confinement, but otherwise he had been unharmed, and
great was the rejoicing aboard the ships of Sari as they turned
back to cross the Korsar Az toward their own land.

Tarzan was afraid to accompany the fleet back to Sari for fear
that their rapidly diminishing store of fuel would not be
sufficient to complete the trip and carry them back to the outer
world. He followed the fleet only long enough to obtain from David
explicit directions for reaching the polar opening from the city of
Korsar.

"We have another errand to fulfill first," said Jason to Tarzan.
"We must return Thoar and Jana to Zoram."

"Yes," said the ape-man, "and drop these two Korsars off near
their city. I have thought of all that and we shall have fuel
enough for that purpose."

"I am not going to return with you," said Jason. "I wish to be
put aboard Ja's flagship."

"What?" exclaimed Tarzan. "You are going to remain here?"

"This expedition was undertaken at my suggestion. I feel
responsible for the life and safety of every man in it and I shall
never return to the outer world while the fate of Lieutenant Von
Horst remains a mystery."

"But how can you find Von Horst if' you go back to Sari with the
fleet?" asked Tarzan.

"I shall ask David Innes to equip an expedition to go in search
of him," replied Jason, "and with such an expedition made up of
native Pellucidarians I shall stand a very much better chance of
finding him than we would in the O-220."

"I quite agree with you," said Tarzan, "and if you are
unalterably determined to carry out your project, we will lower you
to Ja's ship immediately."

As the O-220 dropped toward Ja's flagship and signaled it to
heave to, Jason gathered what belongings he wished to take with
him, including rifles and revolvers and plenty of ammunition. These
were lowered first to Ja's ship, while Jason bid farewell to his
companions of the expedition.

"Good-bye, Jana," he said, after he had shaken hands with the
others.

The girl made no reply, but instead turned to her brother.

"Good-bye, Thoar," she said.

"Good-bye?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

"I am going to Sari with the man I love," replied The Red Flower
of Zoram.